The Facebook phone from HTC now on sale for 99 cents from AT&T

The HTC First, better known as the “Facebook phone,” is now selling for a hot 99 cents from AT&T. The original price at the device’s launch mere weeks ago was $99.

The First was launched, along with Facebook Home, back in April. At that time, we learned that First would bring Home, an immersive Android skin, to vivid life with a brilliant screen, multiple color options, and a fantastic camera.

The HTC First featuring Facebook Home is Facebook’s biggest bet to date on mobile. Basically, it puts all your Facebook news feed activity onto the phone as a living, interactive wallpaper.

We even got to test out the phone ourselves for a week or so. We were pretty impressed:

This pretty, lightweight phone is full of surprise and delight. Even the potentially annoying parts (like Chat Head pop-ups for SMS) were fun to use. The non-surprise is that you’ll see more of your Facebook news feed than ever before. Great for normal consumers of all kinds; maybe not so great as a work-first phone. …

The amazing-looking screen is important because of the wall-to-wall nature of the photo-laden homescreen. Once you put all your eggs in a GUI basket, you need a screen resolution that does the carefully crafted GUI justice.

The GUI (graphical user interface) itself is Facebook’s way of making a mobile operating system without actually making a mobile operating system. The result is pretty awesome, and for 99 cents (with a contract, natch), it’s a steal.