QUICKLY

Latest generation of touch driven pocket pc based on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional but with unique TouchFLO 3D interface on a stunning 640x480 screen. Includes the excellent Opera v9.5 browser, and a nice HTC custom YouTube player. Buyers will need to be aware of the current restricitve broadband capability in the US, and the on-screen keyboard is a compromise that a buyer must consider. Apple could learn from the superb 3.2M pixel camera, and the compact palm size case. Overall a real treat for smartphone officianados.

PROS

• 640x480 High-Res Screen
• Touch FLO 3D
• Opera Mobile Browser
• 3G speed
• 4Gb memory
• Huge availability of MS applications
• Autofocus 3.2Mpixel Camera

CONS

• Screen touch typing
• Slight processing delays
• 4Gb not expandable
• Tri-Band GSM
• Dual-Band 3.5G
• Smooth case fingerprints

Whichever way you look at it, this is a real good looking phone. With its slim 11mm width and tight smooth packaging the Touch Diamond oozes cool quality. Many will undoubtedly buy it just on its looks, and yet there is an array of compelling features in there to keep the keenest of techies happy at the same time.

 When you first see its glassy smooth front and lack of visible buttons, the inevitable question comes to mind, how does it stack up against the iPhone? We are not here to do a comparison review with the iPhone, suffice to say the Touch Diamond has a much superior camera, double the screen resolution and access to a huge library of Windows based applications, but the reasons buyers choose a Windows Mobile device over an Apple product often go far beyond the specifications offered, and brand loyalties run deep!

CONTROLS

KEYBOARD

Everything on this device is driven via the touchscreen. So that means a screen based keyboard. These things can drive some people nuts, whereas others seem to get on with them without problem. The Touch Diamond allows you to choose your preferred text entry mode from 3 main keyboard layouts, or to use character recognition. They each have their own little quirks and with use you will probably want to get comfortable with one mode to avoid confusing the key positioning.

FULL QWERTY
This is the most dense key arrangement available, squeezing 34 keys onto what amounts to the bottom 2/3 of the visible screen. The girls should have no problem with this, it really pays to have smaller fingers!

The layout gives the closest approximation to a PC keyboard, but the keys still have to double up on characters, for instance the "e" key also has a "3" printed at the top, meaning if you tap it quickly you will get the "e" and if you tap and hold it you should get the "3".

It takes a bit of getting used to and often a second try to get the character you want, making for pretty slow progress if you are trying to work on something like a Word Mobile document, or a long message.

COMPACT QWERTY
Offers a 20 key layout giving larger individual keys, but each key now has two characters plus one above e.g. the first key in the top row has "qw" and a "1" above. One tap gets the "q", two taps for the "w" and tap/hold for the "1".

KEYPAD
A 12 key mobile phone keypad is also provided allowing the largest key sizes. Uses the traditional way of entering text into a phone by multitap or T9 predictive text.

T9 predictive text mode is available on all keyboards if you prefer.

CHARACTER RECOGNITION
Additionally three more modes using character recognition entry are offered:
'Block Recognizer' - single stroke recognition.
'Letter Recognizer' - individual character recognition.
'Transcriber' - full handwriting recognition.

Its pretty obvious to say that of course you must choose the right device for the job, the Touch Diamond derives great benefits of light weight and slim design by not having a physical keyboard, but in the end if you need to regularly type fast and consistently then you will probably need the Touch Diamond Pro with its slide out 5 row keyboard, or an alternative like the Sony Xperia X1.

TOUCH FLO 3D

HTC have had the Touch FLO interface in the market for a while now but this is a complete revamp using genuine 3D animations when moving through contacts, weather locations, photos etc. Touch FLO 3D makes it really possible to handle the device using only one hand.

Touch FLO 3D is a more intuitive way to navigate the device than using the slightly outdated Windows Mobile menus, and effectively shields a user from the Windows Mobile OS, offering graceful navigation through the phone contents with an intuitive system of finger sliding gestures.

Light pressure on the screen and a quick gesture upwards will send you spinning through a long list of contacts with ease, touch again to stop scrolling. You can touch and drag scroll bars and menu tabs to move between items. Touch and slide in any direction to pan around a web page or a large pdf up close. Zoom into a photo by swiping clockwise on screen, zoom out using anti-clockwise.

Some users have reported slight delays in response when using the system. From what we have seen response times are acceptable, and have improved since early review versions were issued. Worth noting is that with this hi-res screen there are twice as many pixels to process than on an iPhone screen for instance. If you think this may be a concern, we would recommend you get a hands on demo before buying. NB: Most of the video demos you can find on YouTube are of devices using pre-release firmware.

CAMERAS

The main camera offers a generous 3.2M pixel complete with necessary Autofocus and Zoom - to 4X. The only slight negative would be the lack of a light or flash. 3.2M pixels gives typically a 2048 x 1536 picture size.

There is a second small color camera to the front for video calls, this is 640x480 CMOS device. We hear this may be missing on devices shipped into the US.

SCREEN

The screen is nothing short of superb. Engineering 640x480 into a 2.8" screen gives almost print quality imaging and super sharp detail. The in built light sensor adjusts the screen backlight to match ambient conditions. Even in bright sunlight the screen is easily visible. With VGA level detail it means you do not have to zoom in so far to read a web page, and can easily read a Google Search results page for instance without any zoom.

The built in accelerometer allows applications to sense any movement in the device. This powers the automatic flip over to widescreen mode if you tip the unit on its side. It's also used in Teeter, one of the games supplied, to navigate a ball around screen just by gently tilting the unit around in your hand. The vibration you get when the ball hits the side of the screen is amazingly realistic!

PROCESSOR / MEMORY

The Qualcomm 544 Mhz is a powerful upgrade from the 400Mhz processor used in the TyTN ll. The extra horsepower is put to good use in powering the 3D screen graphics plus the web pan/zoom features and the YouTube player. At first glance the 4Gb built in memory looks adequate, but being non-expandable, heavy users of video/music/pictures may find themselves regularly backing up to laptop or PC to keep storage space clear.

NETWORKS

At present whilst broadband wireless is still establishing a consistent worldwide frequency standard it is more than puzzling why HTC chose to limit the Touch Diamond to only HSPDA 900 and 2100 for 3G broadband, particularly when it already ships the TyTN ll with tri-band.

This directly impacts the US market where no carrier with the exception of T-Mobile yet supports these frequencies. The Touch Diamond used on the major carriers in the US (ATT&T, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel) at this point in time will be restricted to using a GSM/EDGE 1900 connection for data which is only good for up to 180 kbit/s.

This restriction has no impact on normal voice calls, messaging, and light email activity. Web browsing and download is where you really need broadband. The HSDPA 2100 support is of course good for most of the world outside the US, including Europe, Japan and China.

On a positive note, May 5th this year saw T-Mobile launch their 2100 based 3G service in New York. T-Mobile have a big US rollout planned for this year, so keep an eye on their coverage maps.

For many the built in WiFi connection solves this issue, in the presence of a Wireless hotspot you get broadband capability without running charges on your call plan.

Breaking News: Latest news suggest Sprint will release a full 3G version late in 2008.

ACTIVE SYNC

Straightforward Sync program to connect your smartphone into either your PC or corporate users into Microsoft Exchange server. This connection allows you to synchronize Microsoft Outlook including email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes. You can also sync your Web Favorites folder, plus any normal files including Photos,  Music, and Video.

Connections can be made in 3 different ways according to your preference, by USB cable, Bluetooth, or WiFi.

SOFTWARE HIGHLIGHTS

Of special mention is the Opera Mobile browser. The Opera browser is highly respected and accepted as more capable than IE Mobile that is also included. This particular incarnation is the newly released (May 22nd 08) version 9.5 specially optimized for the Touch Diamond, it does not disappoint.

You may overview a complete web page, tap and hold the page to drag it in any direction, flip the device on its side and the browser immediately responds by rotating into a widescreen view, double tap the area of the web page you are interested in and it zooms to that spot, rotate the 'D' wheel clockwise for a steadily increasing zoom in, and anti-clockwise to zoom out. The zoomed text is usefully wrapped so you don't have to keep panning around to read.

Opera 9.5 also comes with web address Auto-Complete, Tabbed Browsing, text copy, History, Bookmarks, and the ability to save pages for offline browsing.

The HTC built YouTube client uses the full 640x480 giving a much better experience than the official mobile YouTube at m.youtube.com. Functionality of the application is similar to a web browser including History, Bookmarks, Search, and an email button which launches an email with the YouTube video link included ready to send.

Launching the YouTube application delivers you to the 'most viewed' or 'top rated' start screen. Just search or select a video from favorites, it loads straight into into landscape mode and starts playing. Controls appear at the bottom of the screen as follows: Back to start | Play/Pause | Stop | Fullcreen. It's clear and simple to use, this will be a very popular application.

Programs shown in Start Menu

Office Mobile:
Excel
OneNote
PowerPoint
Word

Calendar
Contacts
IE Mobile
Messaging
Phone
Help

CONCLUSION

You just cannot help but like this pocket pc, it does so many things superbly well. Microsoft published some market share data earlier this year showing HTC as no.1 in Windows Mobile based PDA devices, and a very close second in the smartphone space. The Touch Diamond is going to give them a tremendous lift in this arena. The deficit in the area of broadband speeds in the US market may well be only shortlived as the US specific models come on stream late 2008, witness Sprint already rumoured to have a full CDMA version.

 Providing HTC can cut the right deals with the major carriers then there remains no major barrier to success. As we go to press the iPhone 3G has just been announced, but has inexplicably retained its low spec camera and lower resolution screen. HTC have a great opporunity here but will have to stay ahead of the technology curve if it is to retain its large market share.

ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE INCLUDED

Active Sync | Adobe Reader LE | Album | Audio Booster (Equalizer) | Bluetooth Explorer | Calculator | Camera | Comm Manager | File Explorer | FM Radio | Getting Started | Google Maps (Includes US) | Internet Sharing (Connect PC to internet using the Diamond) | Java (install Java apps) | Messenger | MP3 Trimmer (chop up MP3 files) | Notes (Notes, Drawings, Voice recordings) | Opera Mobile | Pictures&Videos | QuickGPS |Remote Desktop Mobile (control your remote PC) | RSS Hub (RSS reader) | Search | SIM Manager | spb GPRS Manager | Sprite Backup (Backup data to PC) | Streaming Media | Tasks | Voice Recorder | Voice Speed Dial | Windows Live (Search, Messenger, Mail, Contacts) | Windows Media Player Mobile | YouTube Video Player | ZIP | SIM Tool Kit

Games: Bubble Breaker |  Solitaire |  Teeter

IN THE BOX

Battery | AC adapter | Screen protector | Stereo headset | USB sync cable | Quick Start Guide | Touch FLO 3D Guide | Getting started and Application discs | Extra stylus

HTC TOUCH DIAMOND FEATURES / SPECIFICATIONS