14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like HTC had a full day yesterday, as the company announced the launch of its Android tablet, the Flyer and a tweaked version of its HTC Salsa smartphone, dubbed HTC Weike.
Soon after the official statement that informed the attendants at the event about the release of the Flyer, HTC and Sina made a surprising announcement that unveiled a slightly different HTC Salsa smartphone.
Initially labeled as HTC C510e, the phone's official name has been revealed a few hours after the announcement, which is HTC Weike.
HTC Weike will soon be available in China for 3,380 yuan (about $525) and will be delivered with the same hardware as the original HTC Salsa.
However, as the phone was made in partnership with Sina, it appears that HTC thought to replace the Facebook button with a Weibo key, which makes sense if we think that the phone has been launched in China.
Weibo is a Chinese microblogging site owned by Sina, which seems to be a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook.
Add to that the fact that it is now one of the most popular sites in China, in use by 90% of the market, with almost 140 million users and we can assume that HTC made the right decision in delivering the HTC Salsa with a Weibo button instead of the Facebook one.
“This is the first time for a handset company to cooperate with a Chinese Internet giant, and I think this could be a trend when the mobile Internet era catches on,” said Ray Yam, China president of HTC Corp.
Furthermore, the HTC Weike will come bundled with 19 Sina applications that will allow users access to the company's various services like Tencent IM.
Obviously, the phone will have Weibo integrated in the FriendStream, as well as HTC App store rather than Android Market.