HTC Touch Diamond2 Review

The HTC Touch Diamond 2 is the long awaited update to the popular Touch series. The latest irritation of the device includes some much needed upgrades including better camera, sharper display, upgraded TouchFlo and a more powerful performance.

HTC Touch Diamond2 Design:

The HTC Touch Diamond2 features a beautiful 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen display that boasts 480×800 pixels and 65,000 colors. The screen is vibrant with colors and provides a great and rich user experience.

The phone also features a 5 megapixel camera that takes some very stunning photos. Except for the paltry flash which makes the camera virtually useless in low light, it is more then sufficient to use as a backup camera. It also camcorder functionality and shoots VGA at 15fps. More over it can support video conferencing.

Wireless features include GSM 850/900/1800/1900 as well as 3G HSDPA 900/2100. Bluetooth 2.0 is supported with A2DP and not only that but stereo FM radio as well as A-GPS support.

Overall the device is a better design from the previous version and includes more high quality material which makes the phone look more sophisticated. There are only 4 physical buttons on the front of the phone, a call send, end as well as back button and of course the Windows button.

Performance:

The device, while not the perfect mobile phone, performs much better then its predecessor. The phone includes a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7200A processor with 512MB of ROM and 288MB of RAM. The phone is very responsive and although the device is not multi touch it is a step-up from most Windows Phones.

Concerning web browsing, Internet Explorer Mobile is not the best and although it renders HTML good, Javascript and others might not necessarily show up correctly. A much better browser option is SkyFire or Opera Mobile or Mini.

Call quality is not the best we’ve seen. There can be static or other abstract noises depending on network coverage. On the other hand GPS is very accurate and fast. Same thing goes for 3G support. Bluetooth works well but as with all stereo Bluetooth sets, quality is no where near as good as a wired headset.

Talk time is rated at 7.5 hours and standby time up to 15 days.

Conclusion:

The Touch Diamond2 is a worthy upgrade. Unfortunately due to the lack of a physical keyboard, those who rely heavily on editing documents on the road, texting or IMing should consider the Touch Diamond2 Pro.

This device has already appeared in already available for pre-order at Expansys.com, which means that the phone will be available from 19 April this year at a cost of approximately $608, which is almost $100 more expensive of the initially anounced pirce at MWC in February.