HTC Salsa

There's a slight lack of high-quality action in the mid-sized Android phone section. The big manufacturers are focusing their attentions on creating monstrous, high-end "super-phones" with entire LCD monitors stuffed in their cases, while the smaller phone makers concentrate on offering budget handsets with smaller screens and lower specs.

Thankfully the HTC Salsa has appeared to fill that touchscreen gap, and comes as a throwback to 2010's lovely little 3.2-inch HTC Legend, trying to be the perfect compromise between performance, price and screen size – with added Facebook integration and a larger 3,4-inch HVGA screen.

With pricing expected to be around £20-£25 per month on contracts, could this be an affordable mass-market winner for HTC?

Physically, you get a tough, matte, metallic body, with HTC for once opting to use a colour other than black – the Salsa comes in a shimmering lilac. However, if you're a male user, you could get away with calling it a more macho "bluey-grey". It's certainly a relief to have something from HTC that isn't a dull, black, plastic rectangle.

The form factor is similar to that of the HTC Legend, with a similar flared "chin" that used to be HTC's hallmark design feature plus the same four capacitive touch buttons.

The optical trackpad has, once again, been binned, as with HTC's Desire Sand Wildfire S 2011 updates, making the Salsa a few millimetres shorter than the Legend despite the screen size boost.

One of the finest physical touches is the Salsa's camera button. It's a proper, soft-touch button of the sort you'd find on a standalone digital camera, with a distinct two-stage press that makes focusing and shooting much, much easier than usual on cheap phone buttons, helping keep shots free of motion blur.

The Salsa is just as sweet looking around the back, with the bluey-grey metal nicely topped and tailed by grippy rubberised chunks.

The bottom rubber section is removable, after a bit of a struggle and worry, to reveal the phone's insides, with the battery, SIM and SD card held in place by a locking plastic bar.

The HTC Salsa feels very nice in the hand, well-balanced and pleasingly heavy, with metallic side buttons and logos giving it a touch of class. The capacitive buttons and the physical Facebook one are all backlit, so there's no struggle when using it in the dark. Plus they make it look nice.

Everything else is as we've come to expect from one of HTC's 2011 Android range – a 3.5mm headphone jack and the power button along the top, silvery volume rocker and USB connector to the left. And it's every bit as robust as most HTC phones these days

Full Spesification's For HTC Salsa

GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 900 / 2100
		HSDPA 850 / 2100
	SIM	Mini-SIM
	Announced	2011, February
	Status	Available. Released 2011, June

BODY	Dimensions	109.1 x 58.9 x 12.3 mm (4.30 x 2.32 x 0.48 in)
	Weight	120 g (4.23 oz)

DISPLAY	Type	TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	320 x 480 pixels, 3.4 inches (~170 ppi pixel density)
	Multitouch	Yes
	Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass
		- HTC Sense UI

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

MEMORY	Card slot	microSD, up to 32 GB
	Internal	512 MB ROM, 512 MB RAM

DATA	GPRS	Up to 114 kbps
	EDGE	Up to 560 kbps
	Speed	HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 384 Kbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
	Bluetooth	Yes, v3.0 with A2DP
	USB	Yes, microUSB v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, check quality
	Features	Geo-tagging, face detection
	Video	Yes, 480p@24fps
	Secondary	Yes, VGA

FEATURES	OS	Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread)
	Chipset	Qualcomm MSM7227
	CPU	800 MHz
	GPU	Adreno 200
	Sensors	Accelerometer, proximity, compass
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	HTML
	Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support
	Java	Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
	Colors	Black, Silver, Lilac
		- Facebook dedicated key - SNS integration - Google Search, Maps, Gmail - YouTube, Google Talk, Picasa - MP3/AAC+/WAV/WMA player - MP4/H.264 player - Organizer - Document viewer - Voice memo - Predictive text input

BATTERY		Li-Ion 1520 mAh battery
	Stand-by	Up to 445 h (2G) / Up to 530 h (3G)
	Talk time	Up to 9 h (2G) / Up to 7 h 50 min (3G)

MISC	SAR US	0.49 W/kg (head)     1.23 W/kg (body)
	Price group

TESTS	Display	Contrast ratio: 593:1 (nominal)
	Loudspeaker	Voice 71dB / Noise 65dB / Ring 75dB
	Audio quality	Noise -86.0dB / Crosstalk -85.5dB
	Camera	Photo