By Star Chang, posted Jul 22, 2011 at 2:28 PM, 1,136 views,

HTC Launch Weibo Phone in China (Video)

HTC has worked with Facebook and released a special Facebook’s phone ( HTC Salsa ) which have a dedicated Facebook button to give users one-touch access to their social network. Now HTC did it again, they choose to work with Sina Weibo, the most popular micro-blogging web service in China. The new smartphone model is HTC Salsa with the Facebook button replaced by Sina Weibo, and it’s renamed to ‘Weike’ ( 微客 ). The HTC Weike is specially for the Chinese market and it will cost 3380 yuan (US$524). This might be a good news for those Chinese micro-blogging addicts!

The very first Weibo phone in China — HTC Weike.

The very first Weibo smartphone HTC Weike is a custom version of HTC Salsa. This Smartphone is baked-in Sina Weibo integration and other Sina web services like music and photo album. The hardware’s specs are quite standard, aluminum body design, run Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, with HTC Sense 2.1 interface, come with 800MHz CPU, 3.4 inch touch screen display with 480 x 320 pixel resolution and a 5 megapixel camera. HTC is loaded with dozens of applications and provides easy access to Weibo micro-blogging site. With the dedicated Sina Weibo button, user can jump directly to Weibo post writing interface with just one click, sharing and updating on Sina from mobile phone has become easier than before. The sense interface will properly not syncs up with Twitter or Facebook, since both the social networks are blocked by the Great Firewall. It will of couse replaced by the more useful Sina Weibo for the Chinese user. Like many of HTC’s phones sold via official outlets in China, the HTC Weike phone will come with the HTC App Store instead, not Google’s Market.

The main design of HTC Weike is almost identical to the HTC Salsa.

HTC Weike is loaded with Sina mobile applications and updating Weibo from mobile phone has become easier.

We know Sina Weibo is very hot in China now, and HTC has chosen a micro-blogging web service instead of other Facebook clone to partner with. This show that Sina Weibo has become the most highly recognize social network in China. As for HTC Weike, almost all Sina’s mobile applications have built into it, so this is really a made-for-Sina’s user dedicated phone, with a rebrand name. A dedicated Weibo key can catch some consumer’s eyeballs but is not attractive enough at a selling point, especailly consider the mid-price range. We have reported about the Alibaba phone, Baidu phone and Xiaomi Phone is coming soon, so do the Chinese market really prepare for these re-branded phones with baked-in mainstream mobile applications ?

Source: SinaTech [Link1], [Link2] (in Chinese), Buzzom