HTC's Touch Diamond gets early review

by Tim Stevens posted May 21st 2008 at 11:39PM

It's been about two weeks since we first got our hands on HTC's hot little Touch Diamond, set to displace the vanilla Touch as the sexiest Windows Mobile device in the States. Since then, other than a look in the box and some bold predictions of success, we haven't seen much of the thing. Meanwhile Russian gadget site mobile-review certainly has, posting a thorough hands-on with a pre-release. The size is apparently good, slightly smaller but noticeably better than the already svelte Touch, and the 2.8-inch VGA screen impressive. However, the reviewer seems a bit worried about the magnetic stylus falling out on its own accord, and indicated battery life will fall short of HTC's other models (without mentioning any specifics). That's unfortunate, but given the 528MHz CPU is twice the speed of the chip in the earlier Touch and the battery within the thing's faceted back is smaller, shouldn't come as a surprise.

[Thanks, Marios]

Filed under: Handsets, HTC, Windows Mobile

Tags: diamond, htc, touch diamond, TouchDiamond, windows mobile, WindowsMobile

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Miguel @ May 22nd 2008 1:28AM

Best picture of the size of this thing yet:
http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/review/image/htc/touch-diamond/live19.jpg

amazing. Want.

Neutral

Gaines @ May 22nd 2008 11:29AM

Thanks for the pic. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about this phone.

http://www.HTCTouchDiamond.com

Neutral

Danny Gorog @ May 22nd 2008 1:42AM

what a piece of crap. See how slow and laggy the interface is? The stills look great, but unsurprisingly, in action the device blows.

Neutral

Umeadi @ May 22nd 2008 2:44AM

I like the phone aesthetically, but I'm a little turned off by the inclusion of a stylus. I think if the phone is marketed as a full "touch" device, (hell it's the damn name) I should be able to operate the phone by my touch, and my touch alone. I have large thumbs, and those appear to be some tiny icons.

Neutral

anomoly @ May 22nd 2008 11:02AM

I have the touch... and i love it. I have big hands and never use the stylus at all. even with the WM start menu (just takes some getting used to) and i also use the default xt9 keyboard for text and email, and love it...

the biggest problems i have with the phone is the quirks with WM6 and not having the gps unlocked -

the other weird thing was that you start it up and it looks so good, touch flo and everything... and then after you get past the "cover" its just WM

The diamond looks very nice, i don't think a physical keys are that big of a deal, and i text a couple thousand a month and send email regularly.

Neutral

acidnator @ May 22nd 2008 3:02AM

First time I used Google translator on anything and it turned out quite nice actually. The text was almost better than the English which the guys at mobile-review write :p

Cool phone, still going to wait what the new iPhone is going to offer.

Neutral

Ari Moshe @ May 23rd 2008 4:28AM

here is the link to the website's own english version

[url]http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/review/htc-touch-diamond-en.shtml[/url]

Neutral

Ari Moshe @ May 23rd 2008 4:30AM

oops it seems the url is auto parsed...

http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/review/htc-touch-diamond-en.shtml

Neutral

Travis @ May 22nd 2008 3:36AM

Typing on that thing does not look like its going to be good...if it had a sliding keyboard then it would be perfect. The screen looks too small. The on screen keyboard would have to take up the whole screen. But, I trust HTC. :/

Neutral

evangelistwithiphone @ May 22nd 2008 4:40AM

Viva iPhone

Anyone knows when tmobile will activate the 3G data???

Neutral

TareX @ May 22nd 2008 5:03AM

TouchFLO 3D is amazing, if only it weren't so slow. I expect immediate feedback when I touch something. I'm afraid this is Windows Mobile's shortcoming.

So I would never choose this over the iPhone, which is the fastest, most responsive device I have ever seen.

Neutral

PEZ @ May 22nd 2008 7:53AM

A stylus.. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeww.

Neutral

Brandn @ May 22nd 2008 9:22AM

Still debating between this phone and the HTC Touch Dual (20 - Key)...

http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/review/htc-touch-diamond-en.shtml

Neutral

MBS @ May 22nd 2008 10:41AM

Seeing how the touch dual is one of the phones that HTC did not bother to include real video drivers in I would definitely stay away from it.

Neutral

Sean B @ May 22nd 2008 10:12AM

I use the Sprint Touch when I'm at work and typing when its vertically orientated is a pain in the ass, but changing the orientation to horizontal fixes that up because it spaces out the buttons. Hopefully the accelerometer works when you want to type something so you don't have to lock it into one orientation like the Touch. One of the input methods on the Touch allows you to write (with the stylus) and it decodes it into text (with quite a high rate of success but its not 100% perfect) which makes the stylus a functional tool. I can't imagine writing like that with just your fingers. Just my .02

Highest Ranked

MBS @ May 22nd 2008 10:49AM

Have you ever noticed that whenever some cool new smart phone comes up you always get a bunch of comments on how the iphone is so much better and whatever new phone on discussion currently is all crap.
Just the iphone, never anyone commenting on how their blackberry is so much better or motoQ or blackjack or Nokia N-series or palm or really any other conceivable smart phone. Just the iphone.

Of course, this has nothing to do with iphone users having the hardest time justifying their choice of form over function than users of other phones and everything to do with THE IPHONE JUST ROCKING SO MUCH HARDER THAN ANY OTHER PHONE ON THE PLANET!!!! ZOMFG!!!11!

Highly Ranked

John @ May 22nd 2008 11:24AM

because they are macfanbois. If apple made the iToilet, they would say how much better it is than any American Standard toilet out there.

Neutral

Achilles @ May 22nd 2008 7:58PM

I could care less for iPhone comparisons. I'm with Sprint so it's not an option. The iPhone is nothing special, not at least until the 3G comes out. The 3G version should make the iPhone interesting.

I'm waiting for the HTC Diamond so that I can get some real reviews and test it myself.

Neutral