My brother and I are gadget geeks. He currently owns an iPod Touch as well as the "old" HTC Touch. When he heard about the HTC Diamond and HTC Touch Pro, he just couldn't wait to get his mitts on one. The Sprint version of the Diamond was available, and soon after, he had it in his hands.
Was it better than the old Touch? Is it better than the iPhone?
UnboxingThere are many Internet videos on the unboxing process of the HTC Diamond. However, the Sprint version isn't as elegantly boxed as the international version. We get a standard shaped box instead of the glossy diamond box everyone else gets.
Inside the box, we get the phone, a battery, a USB cable, an AC to USB charger, a CD, and some various books. It also came with a stereo headset that doubles as a headphone. The connector uses a proprietary HTC connector, however. An adapter was included to allow for standard 2.5" connected headsets or 3.5" connected stereo headphones.
It may not be elegant, but it works.
The DiamondThe phone itself differs a bit from the international version seen and videoed all over the Internet. Instead of a diamond-textured back, the back of the Sprint version sports a dark purple color that is slightly rubberized. Both my brother and I liked the way Sprint did this, since the diamond back we saw online wasn't very attractive to us. We've also notice it is slightly thicker than the international version.
The screen is both dark and bright at the same time. This gives an awesome blending-in effect. The bar where the Start button is located at, as well as the context sensitive button bars below are colored black, which blends in with the black benzel of the unit. This make the screen look smaller than it is, but this also proves that the screen's black level is so dark that it can fool you into thinking it is not part of the screen at all!
Not to say the screen is too dark. Because of the excellent black level,the screen is also pretty bright when it needs to when it is show off colors.
The buttons below the screen are a bit creaky, though. For a $500 device, we were expecting a solid click. I am surprised at how cheap they felt. They are indeed functional, however. The center "wheel" is a touch wheel that allows you to circle your finger to invoke the zoom feature in most applications. To actually use it as a directional pad is hard! Because they are not dedicated buttons for up, down, left, and right, I find myself not able to go a certain direction sometimes. The center button is the only thing that gives a solid click, since it is a dedicated button.
The bottom part of the device is where the proprietary HTC connector is located. A standard mini-B USB connector surprisingly fits there, which allows you to charge the Diamond via a standard USB charger. Much like the iPod dock connector, this connector is multi-purpose.
TouchFlo 3DThe TouchFlo 3D is HTC's second version of their Touch interface. The original TouchFlo on the HTC Touch was rarely used since my brother left it on the HTC-modified Today screen. The Touch interface is brought up by flicking your finger up on the screen and gives a nicer representation of your contact list and programs, but not too much else.
Here, the new 3D version is now much more in-your-face. HTC basically designed it to replace most of the GUI Microsoft designed for Windows Mobile. And that's a good thing! Every WinMo device I've used is clunky. I'm starting to think it's not the device's fault, but the WinMo OS itself. If you can use another interface that replaces WinMo, but still allows for WinMo apps to run, that would be a great compromise!
The TouchFlo3D feels like an application on top of Windows Mobile 6.1. In fact, it's as if HTC ripped the interface for the Instinct (very slick and smooth interface) out and made it a WinMo app.
Unlike the first Touch, the interface seem to take over completely, while allowing you to access the standard WinMo interface when need be, which is completely the opposite of the original Touch interface. You are able to access many more features without leaving the TouchFlo 3D interface. For example, you can check your email, invoke Opera Mobile (web browser), play music, check text messages, check the weather, and more!
Playing music doesn't require you to use the Media Player, which is a bit clunky on a phone. The player inside of the TouchFlo 3D is much more like something you'd fine on a well thought-out phone interface. Just like the iPhone, you get a version of a finger flipping interface that allows you to flip through songs or albums. The album art is displayed as well.
The weather part of the TouchFlo 3D interface is animated, which gives it a very slick feel. When it's a rainy day, you see the clouds come in and water droplets. Every once in a while, a wiper comes out and wipes the drops away! Even on a cloudy day, the way they animated the clouds makes the whole experience much more fun and amusing. You can add many different cities to check up on, which is nice.
The phone applet also continues the slick factor by using the 3D engine to display the dial pad and answer buttons. The big hard-to-miss buttons are a welcomed feature, and does feel and look like the ones found on the iPhone.
Of course, to select all these different parts of the phone, there is a bar where you can slide your finger back and forward to access each function. They move and slide in realtime with your finger!
Opera Mobile 9The Opera Mobile application gets it's own entry since most users of this type of phone surfs the web most of the time. Opera Mobile replaces Internet Explorer as the default browser of choice, but IE is still available if you rather use that instead.
I honestly don't see a reason to use IE, however. Opera Mobile 9 is very slick, and goes with the TouchFlo 3D smooth mantra very well. You can zoom in and out in gradient steps instead of the basic zoom in/out in other versions. Unfortunately, it doesn't use the pinch and expand finger gestures like in the iPhone, which is more intuitive. Instead, you run your finger in a circle over the directional pad on the phone to do the zooming work.
It defaults to the full-screen view, which is a good overview of how the page looks. The URL and navigation bars disappear to give you a screen that is full of nothing but the website itself. A small tab on the bottom right gives you access to the URL and navigation bars.
Opera also gives you a tab view, which doesn't have actual visible tabs like on the desktop version of Opera (or even Firefox). Instead, it's a button that pops up a list of sites you still have open. This makes sense, as there really isn't much screen real estate to show real tabs to represent the different pages you have open. This is a great feature since most mobile phones doesn't allow you to multi-task like this with multiple websites.
There are some problems, however. Flash still isn't supported, and the ability to flip between landscape and portrait mode is finicky. It isn't the gyroscopic sensor though, since a game (Teeter) uses it perfectly (and accurately).
Surfing using Sprint's EVDO (Power Vision) is decent. It's not fast, but it's not painfully slow either. Things are bit better over WiFi, but it still seem to be slower than what I would expect. I guess the rendering engine is the bottleneck and not the Internet connection (8 Mbit Comcast internet).
KeyboardThere isn't an actual keyboard on the Diamond. That is reserved for the HTC Touch Pro, which is basically the same as the Diamond except with a full-size slide-out keyboard. This also makes it thicker than the Diamond in size.
Instead, the Diamond relies on the on-screen keyboard given by Microsoft's Windows Mobile. It isn't too bad depending on the type of keyboard you use. We decided that the full-size keyboard is the best, even though it takes up most of the screen.
My brother is used to this, since he was using the older Touch that also didn't come with a real keyboard. However, for me, it took a bit getting used to. It's not all bad, but I find myself typing much slower than I did than on my friend's HTC Mogul (which is what the Touch Pro replaces).
It could be a bit better if HTC offered some form of feedback when the keys are registered, much like an app on iPhone that added this feature.
Sound QualityI must say that I am very impressed with the sound quality of this device! When playing back music or videos, the speaker is loud and clear! It can make you the center of attention in a busy restaurant. The speaker seem to direct sound to the top of your phone (which is the side if you orienent it in landscape mode). This means that for the viewer, it may not sound that loud while the person sitting next to you will get blasted.
Wiith the headphones, music sounds pretty good! You can dedicate this device as your MP3 player if you wish. With 4GB of internal storage, you mind as well!
Phone calls using the speaker phone comes in loud and clear as well. Most people who called say they can hear me, but still rather have me use it as a handset or use a hands-free headset so the mic is closer.
PhoneSpeaking of the phone, the home screen allows for you to quickly dial out numbers and access your contacts. Your call history can be accessed here, as well.
Phone quality using the ear piece (as if using as a standard hand set) is pretty good. No complaints from other callers, and I can hear them just fine.
As stated before, the speakerphone is loud and have much more presence than other speakerphones I've used on a cell. It may even rival speakerphones on my office phone as well.
Just as expected, callers still rather me not use the speakerphone due to the fact that I sound further away. Also, like many cells, it is half-duplex communication so that feedback is eliminated or minimized.
All in all, the using the phone on the Diamond is boring, as it should be.
MemoryThe Diamond comes with onboard memory for programs and storage, which is shared (256 MB split up between the two jobs). Then the confusing part: it also comes with a separate internal storage that is 4GB in size for your storage needs.
Since the Diamond doesn't come with a memory slot of any kind, HTC decided to beef it up with 4 GB of storage space for the user. This is perfect for people storing videos and MP3s, though 4GB can be filled up pretty quick if you're heavy on the multimedia files. You can use the USB to transfer files over using your PC, but I found that transferring files from one phone to the Diamond is used much more often. I had a few MP3s I wanted to send over, and it wasn't the quickest, but seems to be the only way when you're on the road.
We had an issue transferring via Blue-tooth. It seems that every time we transfer a file, the Diamond doesn't prompt us to save. We found out later that it is hidden in one of the top icons on the bar where the Start button resides (the batter indicator and network indicator resides here, too). That was very unintuitive!
Battery LifeBattery life of the HTC Diamond is pretty short compared to most other phones, but still very usable. With a bit of surfing using WiFi, a bit more surfing outside using EVDO, text messaging, and a few calls, the battery indicator was about 25% left at the end of the day. Heavy use of the Internet (via EVDO) really sucks up power, which the phone died in the middle of use! I'd give it about 4 hours of continues surfing and YouTube watching. This isn't too bad all things considered.
ConclusionThe Diamond is one of the best Windows Mobile devices out there! And the reason for this is because of the TouchFlo 3D interface. Without it, it'll just be another slow and clunky WinMo device. But thanks to the 3D interface, it's fast and slick for almost everything. That is until you go back into the WinMo's non-3D interface.
It seems like nothing will make WinMo smooth and slick like the iPhone, but HTC knew this, so they made a replacement interface instead. Since it runs on WinMo, you have the compatibility and versatility of WinMo and apps written for it, and the slick quick interface for when you're just using it as a phone (and a bit beyond).
I'm waiting for the
Touch Pro to arrive, myself. II really need a keyboard, but with the pictures and video online, it looks like it may add a lot of bulk. I'd like to check out the real deal before I make up my mind. Otherwise, I believe the Diamond is a great device for those who can get by without a real keyboard like my brother.
UPDATE - I bought my
HTC Touch Pro! My brother returned his Diamond and jump ship to AT&T and their alluring Apple iPhone instead. Doh!
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