HTC Touch Diamond user reviews

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.

qmt49 1 May 2009

Good: Excellent product

Bad: None

qmt49 1 May 2009

Good: Everything

Bad: Fingerprint magnet

tallbloke 7 February 2009

Good: small and light, GPS, Opera browser, FM radio, good camera.

Bad: Average reception, sluggish interface, onscreen keyboard.

Comment: Great hardware crippled by slow OS.
I selected this handset for pragmatic reasons. I'm not a fan of windows mobile, but it lets me run memory map's pda client, so I can have proper digital mapping in my pocket without having to enter calibration coordinates for many map tiles. the VGA screen is a double bonus, giving beautifully rendered maps of a reasonable span to see what's up ahead as I navigate.

In combination with the excellent GPS, the unit's VGA screen, light weight, FM radio for weather, 3MP camera and small size, this is a good choice for ultra light backpacking in the mountains.

I knew I'd have to put up with the sluggish performance suffered by any hardware forced to run windows mobile, but decided the benefits listed above were sufficient compensation. After making this decision, I simply adjusted my attitude to one of patience and all is well. However, there are some additional annoyances. Scrolling long pages in the Opera browser is a pain, and the onscreen keyboard obscures the boxes you are typing into.

Not a bad first effort at a nice interface for windows, but HTC should consider other OS options.

Once a small linux distro is able to run memory map natively or in an efficient emulator, I'll be moving on.

01Ten 26 November 2008

Good: Slim, sleek appearance. Good looking UI. Apps that rival the iPhone.

Bad: Poor battery life. Cannot expand memory.

Comment: Firstly, it looks great; nobody can deny that! It's slim, sleek and has a great black gloss finish. The back cover doesn't conform with it's smooth, intruiging edges and unique shape. The screen is more than big enough and as sharp as I have seen on any mobile phone. The buttons at the bottom of the phone strike a great contrast in being actual buttons rather than fiddly, and frankly annoying, touch buttons. I also love that it is not bulked out by having many different buttons on the side of the device like many others.

In terms of user frienliness, this is not an issue. The user interface is smooth and simple. If you're used to using a touch screen then you'll take to it without fuss and if you're new to touchscreens then it won't cause you any grief. The slider bar at the bottom of the screen acts as your main port of navigation and works well. It makes a nice change to having a ton of icons on the screen like almost all of the other touchscreen devices have. The ability to literally 'flick' through your emails, messages and contacts help the navigation aspect no end.

The apps that come with the phone are more than fun. The Teeter game is a great time killer as is the bubble breaker game. There are also useful apps such as the mp3 trimmer which allows you to create your own ringtones by cutting down your mp3 tracks. The usual stuff is included like the file browser, voice recorder, calculator etc. The Opera browser is gfantastic and browsing the web is simple and fun with the ability to turn your device on its side to view in a widescreen mode. This is great for watching youtube videos, viewing pictures etc. With this being a Windows device, you also have the benefit of getting apps like Windows Live Messenger and the ability to automatically update your emails through outlook when you link to your pc. Many apps are also available from the internet with anything that works on Windows Mobile 6 (and later) and VGA display being usable.

One negative is the battery life which is not as good as other devices on the market but isn't a huge deal either. My battery life is usually around the 2 day mark which is enough to get you by when out of the house. The charging of the battery is pretty quick also. There is an extended battery available but this adds bulk to your phone, although it would still be less than the iPhone for example (which is massive in comparison).

The inability to extend memory is one which will cause some people issues if they use the phone as an mp3 player as well or store a lot of pictures on it. However, 4gb is ample for most people in my opinion.

It's no iPhone, but it is slimmer, better looking and a heck of a lot more affordable. Not to mention you don't have to sign up for a ridiculously overexpensive contract to get yours hands on one. I'm so glad I got this phone, it is full of little surprises and gives you satisfaction that you have a true mobile heavyweight in the design and performance stakes.

Enjoy your HTC Touch Diamond.

Ian McKeaveney 24 August 2008

Good: Too many things to type in this box lol

Bad: Battery Life, no storage upgrade option.

Comment: The Touch Diamond is the first smart phone I've got after years of owning standard hand sets, after reading plenty of reviews decided to go for this hand set and I haven't been disappointed.

The Stock UI is on the sluggish side, however thanks to the guys at XDA developers I flashed to one of their ROMs and it is now fast and very responsive. The VGA screen is great, lovely resolution and everything looks very crisp. The opera browser is excellent pictures look good, the inbuilt accelerometer is good for switching between portait and landscape and zooming with the touch wheel is superbly done, also with the HSPDA (when available), the page loading speed is ultra quick. A built in Youtube app is brilliant and the videos look great.

The accelerometer is put to good use, works with a game called Teeter (old style marble maze type game), everyone who has tried it has been very impressed. Also there are some good apps that make use of it such as Klaxon alarm can snooze it by turning the unit over (can also put calls on silent with this method :D), or switch it off by shaking it.

Setting up an email account is a doddle, and works really well, previews of emails come up like letters in an envelope which is a really nice touch. The photo album looks good, the camera has a panoramic mode which is great, the music player is good.

The device itself is slim and small and fits in the pocket easily, it's amazing to think of how they've managed to fit so much into the device, yet the 2.8 inch screen is more than big enough.

My only beef is the battery, was lasting half a day when I first got it, now lasts for about 2-3 days, and an extended battery is now available, and the fact that there are no external card slots so you can't add to the storage.

All in all I'm very happy with this handset, would advise not sticking with the official ROM or at least getting a app that'll tweak it, one of my favourite gadgets yet.

chain 25 July 2008

Good: windows mobile OS

Bad: slow speed, short battery life, crashes frequently, complicated UI...

Comment: I recently bought this and it was a mistake - the battery life is annoyingly short. processing speed is slow. this machine needs a lot of work.

sinna 18 July 2008

Good: Small, Slim, and incredibly powerful.

Bad: No flash on camera, no 3.5mm Headphone socket, not ideal mp3 player

Comment: Rather surprised by the low score of the cnet review.

This phone really is rather special, its nearly as powerful as a 3G iPhone but is a lot smaller and lighter. It also has a much better 3.2 megapixel camera. The screen is absolutely beautiful and the Opera Browser a real functioning tool. As for the slowish system response, everything can be improved via the registry. Mine works absolutely seamlessly and I am more than happy with it. It's my 4th HTC phone.

This phone has received nothing but praise in most other websites.