Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"O2 Germany was far ahead of TomTom, when it launched its O2 Xda diamond last month which contains TomTom Navigator 7, a so far not officially announced TomTom version for Windows Mobile Professional devices. And while O2 gave one free city download with its TomTom Navigator 7, it was impossible to purchase any further maps from TomTom. The only way to expand the maps was a workaround. Now, TomTom finally released maps which are compatible to O2's used TomTom Navigator 7 and at the moment, TomTom offers two kind of map packs: TomTom Map of Western Europe v7.20 and TomTom Map of Eastern Europe v7.20"

If you have an O2 Xda Diamond, you can finally get around a little more than just the one free city that came with your TomTom Navigator 7 software, that is as long as you want to travel around Eastern or Western Europe. Currently, there is a GBP 10 discount on each set; a Western Europe download will set you back GBP 49.95, while Eastern Europe is GBP 29.95. TomTom Navigator 7 is not yet available as a separate purchase.

"I must say that this looks super sexy with its glossy black finish. You'll also notice the decent looking set of headphones in that photo above which, in my mind, implies that the dock/cradle will allow you to sync, charge and use headphones while the device Diamond is plugged in! Now that would be cool!"



There was a time when nearly every Pocket PC came with a cradle in the box. Sadly this is no longer true, and we're lucky if a cradle is available at all. The forthcoming HTC Diamond will fortunately feature one, though you'll still have to pay up to get it. I don't think you'll be getting the pictured headphones together with the cradle, that's more likely going to come with the device itself, and I'm a bit dubious about the material - can you say fingerprint magnet? Still, it looks great, and I'm happy HTC is making an effort in this case. Clove Technology have it on pre-order at £25, and confirm the presence of a 3.5mm audio jack - needless to say, price will be subject to change. Anyone want one?

"The new handsets will be called the HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, and the HTC Touch Dual Pro. The Touch Diamond is the Diamond, the Touch Pro is the Raphael, and the Touch Dual Pro is apparently a refresh of the existing HTC Touch Dual."



Things are clearing up a bit about HTC's new Raphael and Diamond devices. They'll have WM6.1 (natch), 520MHz Qualcomm processors, 7.2MBit HSPA, FM Radio, 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM, 3.1MP cameras, WiFi, BT2.0+EDR, eGPS, and 2.8" VGA screens. In addition the Raphael will have TV out and the Diamond 4GB flash storage. Just remember, as far as we know both will be CDMA only - so far.

"We've just laid eyes on a handful of documents detailing HTC's efforts to ready the Diamond and Raphael models -- already known to be valid HTC codenames -- for Sprint later this year, and things are definitely looking up in the post-Touch world. The Diamond turns out to be the successor to that very device, lacking a physical keyboard and relying almost exclusively on a large, glossy touchscreen for user input; the Raphael meanwhile (pictured) features a full QWERTY deal and is destined to replace the Mogul."



Remember that fuzzy picture of HTC's phone lineup? Well, looks like the mystery device(s) are CDMA models destined for Sprint, with the slider out in September and the touch version in November. Both will feature WiFi, 3MP cameras and VGA displays (woot!) - I also rather suspect they'll also have HTC's new Manila interface. Now, when are we getting GSM versions for these babies?