Telus' HTC Touch Diamond gets video review
By Darren Murph 
posted August 18th 2008 1:25AM
posted August 18th 2008 1:25AM
While Sprint and Verizon consider final monikers for the HTC Touch Diamond, some North Americans are already enjoying the thing up in the Great North. The ecstatic folks over at Mobile Syrup were able to snap up Telus' version of the WinMo 6.1-packin' handset, and of course, they put together a video review for us Americans to drool over. The 7:15 clip includes a few comparison angles with other mobiles and a full walk-through of the user interface. Reviewers found the web browsing on Opera Mobile to be a real treat, and of course, they couldn't deny the awesomeness of the 640 x 480 resolution display. You can check the review in full just after the jump, but if you're easily made envious, we'd suggest you not. 
While the guy does overdo his "beautiful" comments I still think this is looking to be a pretty nice phone. I wish all the iphone lovers would stick to the many iphone articles to comment on instead of always trying to bash a competitor. This just in, NOT EVERYONE WANTS AN IPHONE! Rumor has it Sprint is going for an Aug 28th release date instead of the Sept 2. If only one could believe rumors.
I have the iPhone 3G and also just picked up the Diamond for my wife. It's definitely not an iPhone killer, but the phone is very slick. The typing, even in full qwerty on the small screen, actually works really well.... I'm almost tempted to say better than my iphone. I don't think they handled the media side of things that well (the "coverflow" shows a new album cover for every song, instead of flipping through albums like the iPhone). Hate the fact that the headphone jack is usb... pretty bone-head move on their part. Syncing through mediaplayer is a joke. The camera takes great shots, though not in low light, but what does without a flash. The browser is okay, not as "natural" to use as the iPhone, but better than a lot of the browsers on these devices out there. For someone not using it for business I think it's a great phone.... the biggest difference is in the billing - Diamond = $45 per month with voice plan and unlimited web/email etc ($15 promo right now for the web/email). iPhone = $90. Give it a 4/5, would have been higher if they didnt use the usb headphone jack.
I have been using the HTC Touch for the last few months and I can honestly say that it is the worst gadget I have ever had.
unless HTC has completely reinvented the wheel here, I'd stay away from this phone. The touch screen on my touch is a pathetic joke. The picture delay is awful. In fact nothing works on the phone the way it should.
Like I said, unless they completely reinvented everything from the touch (wich it appears they have not) then you'd be paying 400 bucks for a phone that looks awesome but doesn't work worth shit.
Are we every going to see this with some at&t flavored 3G!
....oh and, "just beautiful"
i was watching a review of the diamond on youtube last night and i had already started thinking of not getting the phone specifically because of the lag when viewing photos...not only that but i havent seen a place where u can look at ur pics in like a stream or somthing...just continuous flicking...anyways he did something that i had not seen in any other reviews...he tilted the phone back and the pictures just flew down and stopped when he put the phone back in regular perpendicular position...he tilted it forward and the pictures flew up...i think the accelerometer inside the phone had something to do with this lol i was just like woah! didnt see that before...can anyone verify this for me?? I would hate it if i got the phone and found out that it didnt do this...also does the phone run java and the other multimedia stuff that the ipod/iphone doesnt have?? ive never had a smart phone before and i desperately need office mobile so i have no choice...im thinking touch pro
So is it just me or does this guy talking make you want to track him down and hit him with the phone. Its just so beautiful and of course this guy has a picture of Oprah.
"very intuitive"???
he pressed 4 buttons before figuring out how to stop the damn video
friggin beautiful!
Wow there are a lot of jealous Apple fanboys on here. Hilarious.
I thought the diamond was 0.45in thick? Isn't a pearl 0.6? In the video it's a bit thicker.
did anyone notice he is using the htc victor and not the diamond?
HTC Victor IS the HTC Touch Diamond. I'm not sure, but it's one of either Verizon's or Sprint's little pet name for the product on their service. Why they give a dumb name for a great phone, we'll never know.
wow, i didnt realise this hadnt hit the states yet. ive already got mine down here in merry old aus.
and by the way, I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! all you haters eat your words.
this is the best phone i ever owned, and ive owned a lot, including an iphone 3g, and this beats them all hands down. yes it isnt quite as responsive as the iphone, but after about 2 days you dont even notice.
The keyboards good too, for everyone who said the reviwer missed it. full qwerty is a little cramped, but i just changed the keyboard to the old phone keypad (which im more comfortable with anyway) and its brilliant.
Watch for 6:15 where he mentions "it's so intuitive" right after fumbling with buttons trying to figure out how to stop the video. His fail is just beautiful.
Compare specifications between Telus version and European version.
I want this phone, so I did a lot research on internet. I noticed that the Telus version is very different from the original version on hardware specifications. I am making a diff list, and appreciate anybody who already got this phone can comfirm.
shape: rectangle -> curve edges
back: diamond cutting shape -> flat, and rubber surface to avoid dropping
thickness: 11mm -> 14mm
battery: 900 -> 1340 mAh, it is great.
RAM: 192 -> 256 MB
the second camera used for video call is missing.
the light sensor used for automatically adjusting monitor brightness is missing.
Anyone here who have got the Telus version phone, please add more diff into this list and correct me if I am wrong. Thanks.
Just got the Telus HTC Diamond, and after using it for 24 hours here's my top 5 pros/cons on usability:
Pros:
- great display, clear and clean
- nice size & feel in the hand with the new back cover (not prizm)
- opera mobile is quick, cool double tap zoom feature
- weather feature has a nice visual
- keyboard is pretty responsive
Cons:
- slow ass slow response
- software programs randomly open
- battery life needs to be better, lasted 1 day on full charge
- weather feature has preset cities, so if you don't live in a major city...sol
- keyboard takes up most of the screen when in use, sucks if you can't see what you're typing
Other than that, couple other things that will probably come up later:
- only 4GB, no expansion
- proprietary plug-in for headphones
James, I have the Diamond through Telus in Canada and it does indeed have the sensor to automatically dim the screen. I actually disagree with most of the cons I'm seeing posted above, and am in awe at how spectacular this phone is. I'm grateful for the USB headphone jack (glad they didn't include an old fashioned one), and I've found photo viewing to be 100% reasonable with the album view. I also wrote a mini-review here:
http://www.jonkepler.com/1/post/2008/08/htc-touch-diamond.html
Mynewdiamond, you can receive local weather through the Telus Portal (Pocket Express). If you view your weather that way, you get a 7-day forecast instead of a 5-day, and it's really quick to access it if you add the icon to your programs menu.
I got the Touch Diamond from Telus about 4 days ago, and overall it is a great phone. I had the HTC P4000 with the slide-out keyboard, and found I didn't use the physical keyboard very often and the P4000 was pretty thick because of it. The Touch Diamond is quite a pleasure to use and I much prefer the thinner profile.
There are two things I'm having quite a problem with -- the first is the battery life. This thing really sucks the power. I've made some adjustments to try to save power and hope there is a ROM update to address this soon. The other issue is I've found it locks up sometimes when I close applications and use the touchflo 3D interface too quickly. At first this was quite annoying - but now that I understand why it is happening I'm hopeful there will be an update to address this, too.
I've never had a phone or PDA that was 100% perfect -- the advantages of the Touch Diamond are enormous for me and I'm willing to put up with a couple minor annoyances to gain the crystal clear screen and effortless web browsing. The camera is pretty good, too - best yet I've had on a phone even though it doesn't have a flash (that's probably a good thing since it would drain the battery even faster).
Jim, are you using WiFi? It drains the battery much faster than the data connection. If you need to use WiFi but want to conserve battery life, you can slide over to Settings, tap Menu in the lower right corner, tap Wireless Networks, then touch the Power Mode tab. Also, even though the battery life isn't as long as it could be, it still charges really quickly.
Battery life - I think the battery life is on par with any other device of this nature. I know my friends with iPhone's tend to have to plug it in every night. The bottom line on these things is that using the data connection and a big bright screen are two major power suckers. Currently, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a device like this that does not need to get plugged in every night.
If you open up an older phone (say a razr V3 or something) and put it online and pull data with the screen running, it will die over the course of a few hours. We need better batteries!
Zack, call handling and signal reception are good. No complaints. Camera quality is very good, though video isn't as good as a dedicated camcorder and I wish it was a little better. Audio quality is actually amazing; night-and-day compared to my previous non-PDA Samsung cellphone. Typing speed is great, but you have to watch your accuracy. I'm very good at it now, but wasn't right away.
Steve, I've found that I can always get through the day even with heavy use. I haven't left it uncharged overnight, but it did get through one day of what I'd call 'normal' use with half its battery life left at the end.
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