HTC
Snap

The HTC Snap (model number: S521) was unveiled at the CTIA Wireless 2009 trade fair held in Las Vegas. This four-row qwerty device came at a time when this design was hugely popular due to the success of BlackBerry devices. It also shared a similar physical interface with a trackball with an enter button to interact with the menus and key functions. It was powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. At the launch, HTC declared the phone helped “staying in touch with more people less complicated” and claimed it was “designed with a set of features selected to deliver everything customers need without overwhelming them with things they don’t.” The phone had software called “Inner Circle” that allowed users to “automatically prioritize email from life’s most important people”. HTC cited a survey it had commissioned from Harris Interactive that found that 44% of US adults were often overwhelmed by the amount of email they received, and over half (55%) of US adults prioritized five or fewer people with whom they communicated via email. Inner Circle allowed HTC Snap users to press a dedicated Inner Circle key to bring emails from a preselected group of people to the top of their inbox, enabling important messages to be acted upon immediately. The phone was less than 12 mm thick but offered up to eight and a half hours of talk time with its standard 1500mAh battery. HTC worked hard on the ergonomics of the qwerty keyboard. It was designed with extra-large domed keys and responsive tactile feedback to make typing emails and text messages fast, accurate and comfortable. A version for the US market supporting 850/1900MHz bands was made available under the name HTC S522 later in 2009.