HTC Diamond: Reinventing The iPhone?

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Tags : Announcements & News, HP, HTC, Microsoft Windows Phone Devices, Mobile Phones, Rants and Raves

HTC Diamond: Reinventing The iPhone?

Posted on 06 May 2008 by Wayne Schulz

htc diamond 4gb phone.jpg

Vincent at PhoneMag.com posted some great pictures of the new HTC Diamond taken at the London press conference earlier today. Check out his full live summary of the event here. Then read Vincent’s excellent writeup about the event here. Finally, join me in the comments as I wonder aloud “Holy Cow – Did HTC Just Reinvent the iPhone on Windows Mobile 6.1? How do these guys stand up in front of a press conference with a straight face…in front of a sign that partly reads – HTC INNOVATION…”. Update: This only has 4GB of internal storage, includes a GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera, 900 mah battery. More stats on the next page.

Link: via PhoneMag – Summary of HTC Diamond Press Conference
Link: HTC Image Gallery
Link: HTC Diamond Specifications

htc diamond windows mobile 6.1 smartphone

Here are the specifications for the new HTC Diamond – via the HTC Web Site:

Re-defining the perception of advanced mobile phones… the HTC Touch Diamond™ signals a giant leap forward in combining hi-tech prowess with intuitive usability and exhilarating design.
Featuring a sharp 2.8-inch touch screen housed within a stunning formation of brushed steel and flawless faceted edges, the HTC Touch Diamond is as beautiful to behold as it is to use.
With HTC’s vibrant touch-responsive user interface, TouchFLO™ 3D, and ultra-fast HSDPA internet connectivity… the HTC Touch Diamond offers a rich online experience to rival a notebook computer, allowing you to interact with Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia as freely as you would with a broadband connection.
Your contacts, favourite music, videos and photos are no longer an uninspired line of text. With TouchFLO 3D, album artwork, video stills and snapshots of your friends’ and family’s faces are brought to life for you to interact, play and launch at your fingertips.
A 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera will help you capture the perfect moment in style and with a massive 4GB of internal storage you can keep all the files you need. The integrated ultra-sensitive GPS will help you find your destination as quickly and efficiently as a dedicated satellite navigation unit.
Style and substance in a phone are no longer mutually exclusive. The HTC Touch Diamond has arrived.
Highlights
- 2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the pixels of most phones.
- Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
- HTC Weather – providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
- Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity.
- 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
- 4GB of internal storage to preserve more photos, music, files and exchanged data than ever before.
- Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience.

This post was written by:

Wayne Schulz - who has written 2131 posts on Gear Diary.

Wayne is a diehard Blackberry user and consultant specializing in Sage MAS90 Accounting Software. He lives in Glastonbury CT with his two children. When not helping them with their homework or pushing the latest school fundraiser off on his co-workers, he is active hiking, Scuba Diving and investigating all manner of technology.

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http://www.s-consult.com/index.php Wayne Schulz
Hey HTC – Apple Called – they’d like their iPhone bag.
What do you think ? Am I seriously missing something???
http://www.s-consult.com/index.php Wayne Schulz
One more thing….if I was HTC I would have been “pedaling” as fast as I could to one up Apple by including Flash support. If it’s here — I missed it.
kevinnugent
Wayne, this is the “consolation” phone. Every carrier in the world that DOESN’T sell the iPhone will be getting this.
Imagine. Lot’s of people won’t know or care about the differences.
The launch dates for Europe and Asia – and then the ROTW are too coincidental for my cynical mind.
Kevin
kevinnugent
Oh dear… I just read it has a 900 mAH battery in it. Oh dear….
Christopher Gavula
Huh.
Interesting device/specs.
So they have less storage space than an iPhone (remember the 4GB iphone is no longer available), but they have more real RAM – 192MB. The weird thing is that none of the specs are showing any kind of removable card. Early leaks said it has some flavor of SDHC, but HTC’s website says nothing of any kind of card. Did I miss something?
For a WM phone – this thing has some of the best overall specs I’ve seen (despite the only 528MHz processor and the missing card slot). If it doesn’t cost the mortgage payment it should do pretty well. It seems HTC is mostly listening to people, but I have to say that too many elements seem like iPhone ripoffs. If people want an iPhone they’ll buy an iPhone, especially if this device is only available at a premium price.
I am also really concerned about that small battery. I haven’t seen specs yet on any enegery saving add-ins yet (like the proximity sensor the iPhone uses to shut off the screen when it’s next to your face). If they’ve found ways to save energy they might manage to get those talk/standby times they are claiming. Maybe the savings come from the missing card slot?
It is interesting that the Europe/Asia releases are first (which is normal for HTC releases) vs the delayed U.S. release, which they seemed to make a point of. This means, of course, that it won’t be released in the U.S. at the same time as the new iPhone or the new Blackberry. Probably a good choice considering HTC has more clout in the Asian and European markets than in the U.S. where the Blackberry is currently king with the iPhone close behind and WM devices are behind the iPhone. Get it out in markets where HTC is stronger and competition is weaker first.
Now I wonder what Nokia has up its sleeve other than a push into the U.S. market?
Christopher Gavula
I just saw on a different site that says the device DOES have a microSD slot, but I can’t find any reference to it on HTC’s site. Weird.
http://www.geardiary.com Judie Lipsett
It will also be interesting to see if and how the Diamond changes before it is formally introduced to the US market. I can’t help but remember how the Touch was greatly improved; maybe they will add even better specs for this model, too…
alese
It looks really nice, both the hardware and the software (I wish Microsoft would manage to release something like this as standard interface on WM, not that it took them a year to release threded SMS and zoom in PIE…)
http://www.geardiary.com Judie Lipsett
I questioned my friend eric who works for HTC about why they used a 900mAh battery and only 4GB storage; here was his reply:
“a 900 mah battery is getting me thru 1 day of normal use (WITH EAS turned on). it sounds small because we’re all used to disappointing power conservation in winmo phones. i understand that. but we’ve done a lot hardware-wise in addition to changes msft made in winmo 6.1 to conserve power. that being said, larger batteries take up larger spaces, and we decided that being small was key.
on 4GB of storage. we did a survey and found that most people, even power users, weren’t using more than about of gig of storage on their phones. now we figured that considering the diamond, people would probably use more, so we went up to 4 gig. power users like you may still want more than that. but honestly, despite the feature list, this isn’t the power user dream phone. this is our first foray into the trendy market, as i’m sure you can tell.”
In regards to a question on the Mobius list about UI lags in the demo videos, eric replied:
“finally, yes, there is still a slight lag in some parts of the UI. it’s good, but not all things are *instantaneous*. i will say the demo phones were bogged down with so much stuff going on that i believe it slowed their performance. they are certainly slower than my own personal build.”
baxter
“Lipstick on a pig” – the fundamental problems with WM don’t seem to have changed. There is still the lag and tiny buttons for finger use. Touch 3D just adds another layer of UI inconsistency as it doesn’t apply to all apps (and doesn’t always work looking at a few of the videos on the web today!). My main issues with WM aren’t how it looks, it is how it works. Waiting an age for my phone to decide to catch up with what I want to do is more annoying that how it looks.
Lesley Henderson
I want to get this phone friday is it worth it or not?