HTC Touch Diamond review

HTC Touch Diamond Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 26 June 2008

Another customised app offered on the Touch Diamond is provided by YouTube. You can watch YouTube videos via Wi-Fi or HSDPA and search through YouTube's directory or just check out the latest videos. It seemed to load videos slowly using HSPDA and worked better using Wi-Fi. Picture quality on the Touch Diamond was much better than any previous HTC incarnations, thanks to its VGA screen. Still, it didn't look as good as on an iPhone because the screen isn't as large.

The lack of a flash on the camera mean that shots in low light don't come out very well

If you're not in the mood for videos and fancy games instead, the Touch Diamond comes with a ball and hole game. It's simple, but very fun: you use the phone's motion sensor to navigate a ball into a hole by moving the whole phone. You can 'feel' the ball bumping into the sides of a wall and the pressure of it dropping into the hole. New games using the Diamond's motion sensor have yet to be announced.

This is by far HTC's most consumer-oriented handset to date, so we were keen to see how good the music player and camera were. Joining these features together is a proprietary interface called TouchFLO 3D. It's more attractive and finger friendly than the standard Windows Mobile interface but -- and this is a big but -- it doesn't run very smoothly. While we'd like to say that HTC has cracked the touchscreen smart phone with its fancy new interface, we think that it's still got a long way to go.

As you can see, the glossy bottom surface has a distinct style, but also picks up smudges

The TouchFLO 3D's music interface looks similar to Apple's Cover Flow, but it's fiddly to use and at times froze up. You're better off using the Windows Media player. Annoyingly, you have to use the proprietary headphones to listen to music, which didn't impress us at all.

As for the 3.2-megapixel camera, it took passable shots in daylight, but the lack of a flash meant that photos didn't come out well in low light. Compared to phones such as the Nokia N82 or the recently-announced Sony Ericsson C905 -- both of which feature better cameras and xenon flashes -- we really think HTC has to up its game.