Diamond -- Engadget

diamond posts

Nokia's stunning E71 gets diamond-clad makeover

by Darren Murph, posted May 26th 2009 at 1:24AM

Nokia's E71 looks perfectly elegant in its Espoo-sourced attire, but there's nothing that can't be made more gorgeous / gaudy with diamonds. Enter Continental Mobiles, which makes its ends by shoving all sorts of glitz and glam onto handsets and charging a ridiculous price. The phone you see above is doused with an undisclosed amount of VS1 quality diamonds, and thus, it'll run you a staggering £5,999 ($9,546). 'Course, it is hand-crafted in England, but you'll have to provide your own bodyguard when taking it to the streets.

[Thanks, Sierra]

HTC Touch Diamond2 gets unboxed, shown off on video

by Nilay Patel, posted Apr 15th 2009 at 2:09PM

We haven't heard much about the appearance of the HTC Touch Diamond2 on US shores apart from a few AT&T-related whispers, but the squared-off handset is starting to pop up overseas, and the requisite unboxings and video tours have started flooding in. Sadly, these early units are still running Windows Mobile 6.1, so beauty's only skin deep -- or at least as deep as TouchFlo2 3D. Hardware video after the break, but there's plenty more at the read links.

Read - Windows Phone Mix
Read - Tracy and Matt

Continue reading HTC Touch Diamond2 gets unboxed, shown off on video

Amosu hands-on: pink, pricey, and plenty of diamonds

by Sean Cooper, posted Feb 17th 2009 at 2:23PM

While scavenging for pricey handsets to hang on the gilded walls at the Mansion, we luckily bumped into one Alexander Amosu, of Amosu fame. The Amosu brand is synonymous with gold, encrusted and dripping with gemstones, and most of all, pricey. In his bag of tricks we found three fully-kitted BlackBerry Bolds, a pink iPhone, and an iced Motorola Aura. If you lined them up on a table -- which, of course, we did -- you'd be looking at some 12 plus carats and a price tag somewhere up around 50k. Sure, we're normally harsh on these types of things, but seeing them up close, we could almost kinda get it. Huge sparkling gallery after the break, so if you have shades, now's the time to don them.

Gallery: Amosu hands-on: pink, pricey, and plenty of diamonds

Nokia's 8800 gets more bling, more expensive, more ugly

by Tim Stevens, posted Jan 29th 2009 at 8:31AM

How do you improve on a phone that's already been diamond-studded, layered in carbon fiber, and then dipped in gold? Why, you add more diamonds and some hints of gratuitous platinum, of course. Meet the Nokia Royal Edition, an 8800 that succeeds its predecessors in terms of pretentiousness -- but not necessarily in looks. It has 1160 wee diamonds around the edges and platinum plates on the fore and aft, all surrounding the same internals as those other, plebeian fashionphones. Only 50 of these will be sold at an undisclosed price that surely is equally excessive.

[Thanks, Robin]

Gilded, diamond-encrusted earphones go for �3,499

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 18th 2008 at 8:15AM

We've definitely seen more expensive earphone covers in our day, but these are certainly amongst the most pricey 'buds out there. A single set of these Casa Gi-designed earbuds are currently being sold in Bristol for £3,499 ($5,253), and all that money goes towards 59 diamonds (per bud) and an 18-carat gold coating. Quite frankly, we tend to feel that these are pretty garish, but we've no doubt whatsoever that someone, somewhere will make the trip over and snatch 'em up. 'Course, we can't say how long they'll remain safely lodged in the owners ears given the gadget crime rate in Britain, but we get the feeling these won't really be used for casual listening, anyway.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Verizon training schedule hints at BlackBerry Storm / Touch Diamond release dates

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 26th 2008 at 12:22PM

Let's do a quick recap, shall we? So we pretty much know everything there is to know about Verizon's forthcoming BlackBerry Storm save for the price and release date, and so far as we can tell, Verizon's version of the Touch Diamond is still expected to be totally underpowered compared to Sprint's iteration. Now that we've rounded the tables, let's have a look at this image above. This here is Verizon's internal training schedule, and given that employees have to complete their Storm courses before November 2nd and their Touch Diamond courses before December 3rd, we'd say you now have a pretty good idea of when these two will be landing. Hey VZW -- think you could make that "Blocking Features Assessment" available to the public? We're guessing it'd be a real hit.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

HTC's Touch Diamond coming in white

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Sep 16th 2008 at 10:15AM

If you're jazzed about the Touch Diamond, but have a thing for albino devices, a Danish site may have unearthed just what you're looking for. According to HTC-User, the company will be introducing a white version of their popular touchscreen device come October. ~~We can't say for sure if this intel is pure gold or a pile of festering garbage~~, but if the pics we see (just renders right now) and the retail order page the site is linking to are any indication, this magic will be a reality sooner or later. That's a good thing, too -- you don't want Apple cornering the market on white and black touchscreen phones, right? Check out one more huge picture after the break.

Update: Engadget Spanish has confirmed that these are -- in fact -- the real deal, and will be headed to store shelves come October.

[Via Engadget Spanish, HTC-User; Thanks, Jesper]

Continue reading HTC's Touch Diamond coming in white

Leaked Sprint roadmap reveals Touch Pro, Touch Diamond dates and pricing

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Aug 31st 2008 at 1:31PM

From the looks of it, Sprint has gone and gotten a decent chunk of its playbook leaked all over the interblogs, and it's chock-full of titillating information. Thanks to slippery fingers and loose lips, we already knew that the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro were headed to the carrier, but now we have some solid dates (mid-September for the Diamond, October 19th for the Pro), and pricing ($549.99 and $579.99 unsubsidized, $249.99 and $320 with contract). Of course, this is all according to the above document, which admittedly could be the work of an extremely bored Photoshopper -- but this jibes pretty tightly with a lot of other chatter we've been hearing.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Maria Sharapova and Canon to give away diamond-clad SD1100 ISs

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 21st 2008 at 5:31PM

Maria Sharapova has already had her greatness spread over a number of Motorola handsets, but now the tennis queen is partnering up with long-time associate Canon in order to make five lucky individuals extraordinarily happy. As part of an elaborate marketing scheme, Canon and Maria (but mostly Canon) are cranking up a contest in which five Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS's are given away. But these aren't just any SD1100 ISs -- these are diamond-encrusted editions worth around $12,000 apiece. No word on whether Maria will actually touch the cameras before they're shipped out, but a boy can dream.

[Via Luxist]

Mitsubishi unveils MZW / MX / MXW series of LCD HDTVs

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 19th 2008 at 8:20AM

Barely a month after Mitsubishi launched its iSP 149 series of LCD HDTVs, the company is trotting out three new lineups over in Japan. The higher-end MZW series includes the 46-inch LCD-46MZW200 (¥400,000; $3,643) and 40-inch LCD-40MZW200 (¥300,000; $2,732), both of which pack a 1080p 10-bit Diamond panel, 120Hz technology and an October 21st release date. For those with tighter spaces (and smaller budgets), the MX / MXW series spans from 19- (¥100,000; $910) to 42-inches (¥280,000; $2,550), with the most expensive sets offering a Full HD display and the lesser ones topping out at 1,366 x 768. Oh, and it looks as if Funai won't be the only one delivering a Blu-ray / LCD combo, as Mitsu's already working up a concept. Peruse the links below for all the machine translated nitty-gritty.

[Via Impress]

Read - MZW series
Read - MX / MXW series
Read - Blu-ray / LCD combo concept

HTC to ship one millionth Touch Diamond this month

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 7th 2008 at 8:30AM

We know how much those suits love to hit wild targets they set without any real understanding of the future, so we're pretty sure at least one or two are getting the kudos of their life with this one. Earlier this year, HTC boldly predicted that it would move a staggering two million Touch Diamond handsets before 2009 dawned, and according to a new report, it'll ship the one millionth unit sometime next week. With Sony Ericsson having all sorts of difficulties moving its mid- to high-end mobiles, one may wonder if HTC really can sell another million before December 31st. But we have all ideas the looming Sprint / Verizon launches will be all the help it needs to call itself a proven prophet.

[Via MoDaCo]

More details on HTC's Touch Diamond / Touch Pro for Verizon and Sprint

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 5th 2008 at 10:22AM

There's no doubt that both of HTC's forthcoming handsets (yeah, the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro) are coming to Sprint and Verizon. What we're still curious about, however, are the respective launch dates and the eventual names. phoneArena has it that the Touch Diamond will go by HTC Victor on Sprint and HTC Diamond on Verizon, with the former packing a slightly speedier CPU, an aluminum frame, accelerometer, 4GB of internal memory and EV-DO Rev. A support. As for Verizon's, expect it to boast half the RAM (128MB), a wimpier CPU, microSD expansion slot and a stainless steel frame. Moving on, we're told that the Touch Pro will be rechristined HTC Herman for Sprint and HTC Raphael (nice to re-meet you!) for The Network. Finally, we're clued in on a September 2nd release date for Sprint's Victor, while the Herman is expected a month later. As for Verizon? It'll probably be 30 or so days behind in both instances thanks to a presumed exclusivity agreement with its nemesis. Get all that?

HTC Touch Diamond gets FCC clearance, smells like CDMA

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jul 10th 2008 at 7:54PM

Well, looky here! Not happy with the Touch Dual or Touch Pro, you saucy CDMA lovers, you? Try this one on for size then: the last piece in HTC's EV-DO puzzle for 2008 has now hit the FCC, the Touch Diamond -- and though only Telus has managed to announce it so far, we're feeling good about plenty of other carriers on the CDMA train recognizing the importance of this device and signing on before too long. We see test reports for WiFi, too, though we imagine it'll be at carriers' discretion to disable it if they're so inclined. Let's get a move on, Sprint. You too, Verizon, don't think we don't see you whistling over there in the corner.

�10,000 diamond-clad Nokia N95 borders on gaudy

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 7th 2008 at 10:43AM

To be fair, Continental Mobiles' diamond-encrusted Nokia N95 is a real bargain at £10,000 ($19,813) when compared to Amosu's £12,000 alternative, but seriously, real richies should be holding off for the evolutionary N96, anyway. For those with enough cash to care, this particular handset / status symbol packs a Sterling silver front-panel stacked with "4.42ct of brilliant-cut, VS1 quality, color G-H, naturally mined diamonds." If you're craving one, you'd better get your order in now, as it takes the British craftspeople crazy enough to sell these things three full weeks to whip one up.

[Via Pocket-lint]

HTC's Touch Diamond gets spotted in Sprint attire

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 6:14PM

Right, so it's not like we didn't know a CDMA version of HTC's hotly anticipated Touch Diamond was headed to Sprint, but who can honestly argue with in the wild photos proving that said assumption is true? What we have here is a bona fide Diamond in Sprint garb, although eagle-eyed readers will likely notice the mildly tweaked TouchFLO interface (which reeks of Bold there at the bottom, no?). At any rate, you can peek one more (blurry, of course) image of this bugger in the read link.