Facebook's new phone and expected features

HTC and social networking giant Facebook seems to be all set for new Facebook phone release, confirm latest reports.

According to leaks by @evleaks, the Facebook ‘Home and Android' event is definitely for a new phone. Facebook seemingly has collaborated with HTC for the launch of this new phone. How monotonous and unsurprising (read HTC Salsa and HTC ChaCha)! The new phone rumoured to be called HTC Opera (when the rumours were at their peak last year) - and now HTC Myst, will finally be called HTC First it seems.

Going by leaked images of the new HTC phones, HTC seems to have turned the design.

The phone has none of the standard HTC trademarks. The home button at the bottom is no longer the traditional outline of a house but HTC has replaced it with a small circle.

Rumors of a Facebook smartphone have been doing rounds for over a year now and even Facebook has denied attempting to launch its own hardware.

But Facebook fueled fresh rumors recently about its own mobile phone after the leading social network scheduled a press announcement for next week.

Though the FB's invitation for April 4 only says "Come See Our New Home On Android", technology news site TechCrunch reported the announcement would be a modified version of the Google Android operating system with "deep native Facebook functionality."

Another report on "9 to 5 Google" said Facebook is designing the software for the new smartphone, which would be made by Taiwan's HTC.