The next best phone - HTC Diamond Touch

[SiM]

This will be my next phone. It what the HTC Touch should have been. I feel like my HTC Touch is worse than my old HTC Magician (Imate Jam) - It is certainly slower!



# 2.8-inch VGA display
# WinMo 6.1 Pro
# WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0
# eGPS, FM tuner
# Quad-band HSDPA 7.2
# 4GB internal flash, microSD slot
# 528MHz CPU
# 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus
# 10.7mm (0.47-inches) thick
# Supposedly also features an orientation sensor / accelerometer

Source

[Funkstar]

I'm looking forward to see what else is announced at the HTC event in London tomorrow.

A TyTN III with those internals would be good.

[Spud1]

Looks pretty nice, so long as they DONT put in a physical keypad it should be a rather nice phone - what the Touch should have been as you say.

[thestjohn]

They could get someone else to do the camera for them too. Not one HTC produced device I've owned has had the capability to take a good picture. Pitfalls of convergence and all that, but it would sweeten the deal for me.

[Funkstar]

There is no reason an HTC device couldn't have a good camera. Part of the problem is that until recently HTC have always produced phones for other people, and those tend to be business oriented devices.

Now they are releasing their own devices unter their own brand, they need to step up and compete with Nokia and SonyEricsson, especially as all their devices are pretty high end.

I'm still hopeful this next generation of devices are more consumer focussed with usable cameras and speedy video compaired to the last generation.

[mightymouse]

i think they are more focused on competing with iphone, palm pda phones, blackberry, etc. to be honest i have used quite a few HTCs and i dont really like them. i find it rather dull and i get sick of them too quickly but of course just my opinion. i have reverted to using a basic phone now

[Dreaming]

Doesn't say whether it will be using that MSM chipset which has been notorious across the mobile dev community as there were no software drivers provided . If that was the case personally I would boycott the product (I won't be getting an upgrade anytime soon anyway, but still)

[thestjohn]

I know it's not always the most reliable source, but engadget seem to think that HW 3D acceleration is being made use of this time. See here. No mention if video is accelerated though.

[Funkstar]

Originally Posted by Dreaming

Doesn't say whether it will be using that MSM chipset which has been notorious across the mobile dev community as there were no software drivers provided . If that was the case personally I would boycott the product (I won't be getting an upgrade anytime soon anyway, but still)

There is no way they would be able to drive the 3D interface without hardware acceleration.

An alpha build of this was leaked a couple of months back, I think a couple of people managed to get it to run on existing deices for a few minutes and were seeing performance down at 1-2fps.

[Funkstar]

From Engadget:

• The Touch Diamond makes use of GPU accelerated procedural graphics, so you will not see a backward-compatible TouchFlow 3D update for the current Touch. It's capable of doing 7-8mil polygons per second (not that many games or apps will make use of that right now).
• HTC has made hiding WinMo away something of a priority; CMO John Wang stated, "You wouldn't even know this device was Windows Mobile. You would just think it's TouchFlow 3D."
• HTC totally reworked the WinMo virtual keyboard (as you can see above). Definitely not the best laid out we've seen (okay, it looks kind of messy), but it's instantly lightyears ahead of what WinMo had before.
  
• Opera "reflows" web formatting, which HTC is pitching hard. Basically it just reformats and wraps text on zoom -- unlike, say, the iPhone.
• Unfortunately, the device still uses a resistive touchscreen, while the controls below are capacitive. That really ought to be flipped around.
• And of course, we had to ask about Android: the first device is (still) coming later this year, but it will not br in the form of the Diamond.

A little more on HTC's Touch Diamond - Engadget

[MadduckUK]

looks like theres quite a bit of wasted space...



better..

[Funkstar]

true, but....

From the Twitter feed for Coolsmarphone.com (Twitter / coolsmartphone)
"Battery life has been raised - the response was "this device is not perfect". They perhaps meant that a big battery would look ugly "

Your photochop might look better, but it's probably physically impossible to get all the inner workings of the phone in a form factor that much smaller. Especially if they have already had to compromise on the battery.

[Funkstar]

A bunch more hands on videos:

Coolsmartphone.com - Video and Photo Special - HTC Touch Diamond Up-Close

This is a good hands on as well:
Coolsmartphone.com - Full video of HTC Touch Diamond in action

[UseItNow]

Apparently June (08) release in UK on all five networks.

Any ideas on what O2 might charge on their 12 month/40 Quid deals?

[SiM]

Its on play.com
Only £429.99

[planetgong]

Want one want one want one!