The HTC First has been an interesting handset to watch. The handset originally launched with a $99 price point that was quickly slashed to under a buck. When AT&T dropped the price to $0.99 (on a two-year agreement) that brought speculation about how things were going downhill for the handset. The carrier maintained the price drop was for a sale, however an end date has still not been announced.
Flash forward till the present day and it looks like AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega has spoken up about the handset. And in fact, he has made an interesting comparison to another not-so-successful device. That other device was the Motorola ROKR, which some may remember better as the failed iTunes phone. The interesting part comes because while the ROKR was not a big success, he did talk about how he believes it helped AT&T get the inside track with Apple in terms of the iPhone.
“We have a great relationship with Apple just like we have a great relationship with Facebook,” he said. “We look forward to working with them to make Home better.”
With that in mind, De la Vega also spoke about how they remain committed to working with different iterations of products and partners. There wasn’t anything specific mentioned, however that does sound like it could lead to some interesting (and possibly unique) handsets in the future. Shifting back to the HTC First and there is a bit of good news for AT&T — they have sold out the current inventory.
AT&T hasn’t said how many they have sold in total, however De la Vega did speak about how they “sold a bunch more” after they lowered the price. That said, while there is plenty of criticism about Facebook Home, the handset wasn’t all that bad for $0.99 — after all, with a few taps you could turn the handset into a regular Android device. Not to mention, while the specs are not what we would consider high-end, they seem more than acceptable for a dollar.
SOURCE: CNET
Yeah the phone was decent if you deactivated the Facebook home skin.