The rumors of a Facebook phone have been floating around for some time now, and they seem to crop up once every few months. Today we've got another to add to the pile. A new report from Pocket-lint claims that the Facebook phone is indeed in development, and according to the site's "very reliable source," it goes by the codename "HTC Opera UL." The tipster described this device as "the Facebook phone, made for Facebook." A product with codename "OPERAUL" recently popped up in a NenaMark 2 benchmark test with a 1.4GHz processor, Qualcomm Adreno 305 GPU, 1280x720 screen resolution and Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean.

As for when we might actually see this mysterious HTC-made Facebook phone introduced, the source of this report didn't have much information to offer, saying only that "apparently it's been delayed." The previous Facebook phone rumor that popped up back in July claimed that the device was originally due in 2012 but was pushed back to mid-2013. However, it's not clear if today's mention of a delay is the same one that pushed the phone into next year or if this is a new delay.

HTC last year introduced two Android-powered smartphones with dedicated Facebook buttons dubbed the Salsa and ChaCha, the latter of which came to AT&T as the HTC Status, but none of those products ever saw much commercial success. Whether or not another Facebook phone from HTC would fare any better is certainly up for debate, but the rumor mill certainly seems to think that one is on the way. How much success do you think a new Facebook phone would have?

Via NenaMark, Pocket-lint