The persistent rumors of an Android-powered “Facebook phone” culminated in the unveiling of the HTC ChaCha and its larger sibling, the Salsa, at Mobile World Congress back in February. With its full QWERTY keyboard and slightly silly name, the ChaCha drew attention for being the first phone to put the social network at the center of the user experience. Avid Facebookers were promised hardware and software to help them stay in touch with their legions of friends and followers — a dedicated Facebook button was introduced, along with a specially-customized version of HTC’s Sense UI.

HTC is now pushing out its first over-the-air update for unbranded European Sensations, according to reports from users in several European countries. The update package reportedly weighs just under 27MB, and brings the Sensation up to software version 1.35.401.1 — the exact same version which leaked last week in the form of an RUU (ROM update utility).

British network O2 is now offering HTC’s new Facebook phones, the ChaCha and Salsa, on-contract and on Pay & Go. The ChaCha can be yours for £209.99 with a PAYG SIM, or for free on contract a number of 18 and 24-month contracts. Free contracts start at £21.50 for 24 months, or £26.50 for 18 months. If you go for a cheaper contract, you’ll pay £60 up-front for your ChaCha.

The plot thickens. Last week HTC kicked up a bit of a storm by announcing that the Desire wouldn’t be getting an official Android 2.3 Gingerbread update due to memory constraints, saying there wasn’t enough space on the phone for Gingerbread and HTC Sense. Then, 24 hours later the manufacturer responded to feedback from Desire owners and changed its mind, committing to delivering Gingerbread alongside a trimmed-down Sense UI.

A pleasant surprise has just popped up on my Telus HTC Desire HD — Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The update itself comes in at 99.68MB and while it’s not going to bring Sense 3.0 to the Desire HD it’s still nice to see HTC keep their word and roll it out to customers. If you’re rooted, or running a custom ROM you may need to return back to stock in order to get it up running but after that it’s as simple as just checking for system updates under your settings menu. If you’re looking for the manual download link, look below.

Shocking, we know, but it appears as though Sprint and/or HTC have gone a step above with the EVO 3D and made it really easy to remove extra — without requiring the device to be rooted.

These phone names are killing me on the inside, slowly. I’d rather go through the trouble of saying “It’s a HTC, BlackBerry style Android” instead of “It’s the ChaCha.”

Next they are going to start naming phones like: Function, Within, Attain. Oh, wait….