New HTC-made Facebook Android phone coming later this year?

The mythical Facebook phone is in the rumors once more. Of course, we already have handsets that offer deep Facebook integration, and even dedicated Facebook buttons (like HTC Salsa, HTC ChaCha, or Motorola MotoKey Social). But this time it looks like we’re talking about Facebook’s first own-branded handset.

DigiTimes has it that the new Facebook phone is manufactured by HTC – just like previously reported. HTC agreed to work with Facebook partly because it’s no longer Google’s Nexus partner (Samsung is now).
Reportedly, the Facebook handset will be launched in Q3 2012 “the earliest,” running an unspecified version of Android, and using a “platform exclusive to Facebook to enable and integrate all functions available on the social networking site.”

Back in November, we’ve heard that the first Facebook-branded phone was codenamed Buffy. Sure enough, that may have changed in the meantime. And we’ll probably not find out the handset’s official name until the day it’s finally unveiled by Facebook.more post via.