The HTC Touch Diamond is a brave new product that tries to capture some of the iPhone's popularity by featuring a finger-friendly interface that looks better than anything we've seen on a Windows Mobile handset before. But can HTC apply Apple's success by using Windows Mobile and a fancy new interface?
The HTC Touch Diamond will be available soon on most major networks for free on a monthly contract.
Design
The HTC Touch Diamond looks fantastic compared to any Windows Mobile phone we've seen before. It's not too large or small and has a thin profile, which makes it easy fit into a pocket. Unlike previous models, HTC has added an attractive twist to the design of the back of the phone by using a prism-like surface. It looks less boring that your traditional smart phone.
The Touch Diamond's VGA (640x480 pixels), 71mm (2.8-inch) touchscreen is very sharp and displays pictures really well. Unfortunately, it's very glossy, so you may struggle to see what's going on in bright light. Another disadvantage of the Diamond's glossy surfaces is that they pick up unsightly fingerprints on the back and face grease on the front. Expect to clean this phone often if you want to keep it looking good.
Underneath the touchscreen, you'll find a set of flat, clickable keys. Interestingly, the four-way navigation key doubles up as a touch-sensitive scroll wheel in certain apps such as the photo viewer, letting you zoom in and out of pictures. Bizarrely, the scroll wheel doesn't work everywhere, which is a shame, particularly since we would have liked to use it to scroll through long contact lists or music tracks.
Features
Considering its size, the Touch Diamond is packed with features. It's
one of the most feature-rich Windows Mobile phones out there and boasts
almost everything you'd need on the move. There's GPS that you can use
with Google Maps -- it looks great on the Diamond's screen, too -- and
HSDPA and Wi-Fi, which makes browsing the Web and picking up emails
fast and possible almost everywhere you go.
A customised version of Opera Mobile also makes surfing the Internet enjoyable. It lets you see an entire page and then zoom in on the parts you want to see properly. Opera Mobile also lets you open new tabs, which means you can navigate through a few different pages without needing to open new windows. It's one of our favourite apps and it works well on the Diamond's ample touchscreen.
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User reviews13
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Oliver85 1 August 2009
Good: Google maps, weather reports and microsoft office, reasonable build quality.
Bad: Slow performance, battery life, crashing all the time and random calling.
Comment: I got this as a free upgrade, thinking this will change my life etc but I was wrong. I owned the phone for 8 months and it had to go, performance was slow, kept crashing at times and just froze, navigation buttons would skip to the next menu that I did not use. All in all, nice try but this phone did not do the job for me.
kpaxm77 27 July 2009
Good: user Interface not very bad
Bad: Newton rings, Poor customer care, Poor PC connectivity
Comment: Just google HTC Touch diamond with Newtons rings and you will find terrible sad tales. I bought mine 11 months back and it has developed the so called newton rings. The customer care insistes that this was caused by misuse whereas I have taken care of it like my baby.An inherent problem in diamonds, the screen has ring like patterns when this problem starts showing itself. Mine is under warranty and they say this does not come under warranty. Send it to them for repairs and you will have to cough up atleast £15 to get it back plus the repair charges if you decide to get it repaired. A sorry state of affair, HTC is afailed story. Go for other celphone companies who have experience in making such phones.
calerouxz 2 July 2009
Good: interface, screen, style
Bad: speed, windows OS
Comment: Well...I have been using the diamond for about 5 months...And I recently upgraded to windows mobile 6.2. I want to start off by going through the windows OS 6.1, witch is the default version it comes with. So....As the review on CNet said, the touch screen is quite bad, but it really is not...After testing the screen of both Win OS 6.5 and 6.1, I know what im talking about. The fact that windows mobile is not made for touch phones is a huge disadvantage for HTC, since this phone is very good. The OS its currently running is slow, and frustrating to use (6.1)...And most of the icons are not made for fingers, and personally I hate to use the stylus. The touch flo 3D interface is quite nice, but if they would have actually customized the whole windows mobile OS it would be better. Now going to windows mobile 6.5...Windows mobile 6.5 does not accept HTC's TouchFlo 3D, witch is a shame, since I really liked it. In the other hand, windows gave this version a new home screen, a new "start" menu. Windows mobile 6.5 is all this phone needed, because Windows mobile v6.5 was build to be finger-friendly, even though it is still not as fast as the iphone OS, but its comming closer. 6.5 has even bigger icons, a new way of placing them, and on top of that is has many "style" updates. As I mentioned before, people have said that HTC Diamond's screen is bad and mediocre, however, seeing how the phone and the keyboard works, I dont think that. However... What they did say that was true is that the keyboard does sometimes cover where you want to type. In windows mobile 6.5 everything is faster. There are some bugs in the recent calls list, where when you reach a certain point while scrolling through, it will suddenly select more than one call at a time, although its identifiable by seeing the letters. Going back to the phone...It has a 3.2 mpx camera, witch is not as bad as some other phone's, and I think its pretty good for a phone the size of the diamond. It has a 4GB internal memory, and a 130MB main memory. Unfortunately I cant say this is very good, since if you place music on your Internal Memory, then it will not appear in windows media music library, so you have to go into the internal memory and select from there what you want to play, and you cant create a play list, I would have wanted the the internal memory would be the main memory, since the main memory is only 130MB, it can be filled up quite easy. Even in windows mobile 6.5 you might still have to use the stylus, but not as much as the original 6.1.
While it IS a very nice looking phone, it IS a fingerprint magnet, its very glossy. The back of the phone is shaped up to look as cut diamond.
The speakers of the phone are not as good I'd wish, as they pack a lot of distortion, and also have low volume. You do have to use the proprietary mini USB jack for your earphones, fortunately, these are packed in the box with your phone. You can also use a bluetooth earphone set, but that will cost you something like an extra 10-60$.
This phone has 3G, Wi-Fi, witch is good for such a little phone. If you cant this phone, then buy it for your need: Call...Then you could get an Ipod touch, such as I do to store most of my appointments, and more applications.
I really recommend this phone, but if you do buy it, try to get it up to windows mobile v6.5. There are still many bugs in this version of windows, but it will greatly improve the usage of this phone.
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