Friends. Fun. Facebook. Vodafone Blue.

He's always on Facebook.

That is what the above embedded Broadway-musical-styled TVC's refrain is. In case you didn't watch the video, for the first half minute you don't get a clue what is it advertising, but you begin to like the music. The next 90 seconds or so, Facebook's features are explained in a well crafted, intelligently composed, and brilliantly choreographed manner. The last 13 seconds talk about the product.

The Vodafone 555 Blue phone. Friends. Fun. Facebook.

(After the popular Vodafone Zoozoo ads, this one by Ogilvy & Mather is an entertainer in itself. Compare this to the relatively drab 2:48 min video broadcast in the UK, that talks about the phone's features. Also worth mentioning here is the catchy Har ek Friend Zaroori hota hai TVC by Airtel.)

Alcatel Lucent manufactures this phone's hardware that runs the heavily-customized Java OS that puts Facebook to the heart of the device, including placing Facebook messages in the same list as text messages. In addition to the physical Qwerty keyboard, it has an button for quick access to Facebook. The camera can directly post your photos to Facebook and Facebook profiles are synced with the address book on the phone.

Other than an OS integrated with Facebook, the phone offers nothing much. Very apt for students/teenagers who breathe on Facebook, and use their phones to access the most popular social networking site of all times. It also has the Palringo chat suite that support Google Talk, iChat, Facebook Chat, XMPP, ICQ, and AIM. And comes with default Email client with POP3 and IMAP4 support and Opera Mini web browser.

The phone runs on a 200 MHz processor and 40 Mb 'on-board' memory, as the official specs state, a part of which may be set aside for the RAM. A maximum of 16Gb card can be used as the hard drive. The screen is a small 2.4 incher with 252k colour display. The camera is 2MP, providing basic photography but aiding faster uploads to Facebook since the photo size remains small. The only feature that is noticeable is the 3.5 mm audio jack, making the phone compatible with high quality earphones.

The modest phone costs £60 in the UK, where it was launched a few weeks ago. The price tag on the Indian version launched on 6th September reads 4,950.

Great price for the feature, notwithstanding that it is the only one around which the phone has been built. The targetted young customers in emerging markets like India will definitely love it.

If you want a smartphone with/without a touch screen and running your favourite Android, there is always the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa. The only glitch—each of them is thrice as expensive as the Vodafone Blue.