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

Looking for a great deal on a modern Windows Mobile device? Then check out what Expansys is selling for a mere $389 USD: a Touch Diamond! [Affiliate] I'm kind of amazed to see the huge price drop, but perhaps it's a simple supply/demand issue because these units are Euro frequencies, meaning you won't get 3G in the US or Canada. If that doesn't matter to you, it's hard to beat this price on what is still a flagship device from HTC.

Yesterday HTC quietly released a new HTC Touch Diamond into the mix: it seems it's identical in every way to the current Diamonds on the market now, it's just got a new look. I like the white quite a bit, largely because it would help hide the ridiculously smudge-prone surface that HTC wrapped the diamond in. Want to see an even bigger version? Here's the full resolution image.

"New iPhone competitors continue to crop up, though most are mobile devices from companies that simply slap on a touch screen in hopes of fooling consumers. The real key to the iPhone's success is its software, and finally, signs indicate that other companies are starting to pay more attention to making good software to go along with their hardware. One welcome sign is an effort by companies trying to improve Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows Mobile operating system, which has a reputation for confusing navigation and hasn't had a major update recently."

This is an interesting article, not because it's the Walt Mossberg crew's typical skewering of anything Microsoft and the typical slavish praising of anything Apple, but because it highlights a problem that seems to have Boehret thinking that this device is less capable than it really is. The big issue was the keyboard: Boehret describes the keyboard as "...small and cramped. Using just your fingertips was next to impossible." She's obviously talking about the standard Windows Mobile keyboard, the one designed for stylus use, not the HTC keyboard, the one designed for finger-tip use. The HTC keyboard looks very much like the iPhone keyboard, and while it's not quite as big due to the screen size differences between the iPhone and the HTC Diamond (3.5 inches vs. 2.8 inches) it's still quite finger friendly.

So the question is, should Microsoft continue (presumably) forcing HTC to include the stylus-based keyboard if it means that people who don't know any better (which includes Boehret) think that's the only keyboard there is to use? The ability to toggle between various input methods isn't terribly discoverable - everyone reading this site knows how to do it, but a user who's never picked up a Windows Mobile Professional smartphone might think that whatever keyboard pops up is the only one they can use. What do you think - would the usability of the HTC Touch Diamond go up or down if, by default, there was only one input method? And yes, I'm suggesting turfing not only the tiny stylus-based keyboard, but also the block recognizer, the letter recognizer, and even Transcriber. The stylus on the HTC Touch Diamond is so small I find Transcriber almost impossible to use. If you own an HTC Touch Diamond, do you use one input more than another? And do you swap between input methods?

"...HTC's made it possible to have your cake and eat it too with a new firmware update posted to its Asian site that proclaims the addition of GSM 850 support among several other changes and fixes -- some ten in total. After working through some confusion over the appearance (or lack thereof) of 850 in the band selection screen after updating, it looks like this does actually work for a variety of Touch Diamonds floating around out there, so let us know how you fare if you decide to give it a shot."

If you're a Touch Diamond owner living in North America, take note: this ROM update will enable the 850 GSM band in your phone, allowing you to gain greater coverage. This update does not add the missing North American 3G band, however, so you'll still be stuck to rocking on EDGE. Right now the update is only officially available from HTC Asia, but it should be making it's way to HTC USA and HTC Europe's sites fairly soon. I tried my HTC user login on the HTC Asia site, but it didn't work.

"A frustrating phone in every way. Some excellent touches promise so much - including a great screen and web browser - but in use it's unbearably slow. When weighing your decision whether or not to buy the HTC Touch Diamond, we'd suggest you keep one dominant image in your mind: a set of old-fashioned scales. In the left, we'll put the Bad stuff. And in the right, we'll throw in all the Good. Very little about this product falls in between. Let's start off with the Bad."

What a great example of the media's double standards. They give the Diamond 2/6 stars and heavily criticize the battery life for not lasting through heavy use over a weekend. Their review of the iPhone 3G, a 5/6 star device, mentions that you'll need to charge the device every other day even with moderate use. So why is one product slammed and one product just barely criticized? It's like everyone is terrified to criticize the iPhone. Ridiculous.

However, on the speed of the Diamond, which is his primary complaint, I have to agree with him somewhat - even with the latest ROM update from a couple of weeks back, it's still too slow. Sometimes moving from element to element happens reasonably quickly, but there's still a delay where nothing happens at all. That might have been acceptable three years ago, but it's not acceptable today. Too often, it will stall out moving from one thing to the next. The funny thing is that even with that criticism, it's still the best Professional device I've used overall, at least one without a keyboard. On the stability front, even with no third party applications installed, I've had to soft reset it once after about a week of using it, which was a bit disappointing. Since then it's been two weeks without need for a reset, which is pretty good - although I'm spoiled by my T-Mobile Dash; I might have to reboot it once every three months at the worst. Read more...

"When we unveiled the HTC Touch Diamond in May, we promised that it would be coming to North America later this year. Today Telus is announcing it will be the first carrier on this side of the pond to carry the HTC Touch Diamond. With this announcement, HTC continues our tradition of creating a family of devices, bringing the HTC Touch Diamond's unique style and exceptional features to a number of form factors and wireless protocols. Telus will launch a CDMA version of the HTC Touch Diamond later this summer for $149.99 with a 3 year contract. To make the HTC Touch Diamond even more attractive, they offer subscribers very affordable unlimited data plans like $15 per month for unlimited email and IM, or $30 for unlimited email, IM and web browsing."



I know many of you were waiting for a CDMA version of the Touch Diamond, but I doubt our American readers thought they'd see it launch in Canada first. I'm frankly just as surprised as you are - first, that they have a CDMA version launched before a North American GSM version, and second that a Canadian carrier is getting it first. We used to be the laggards, but it seems Canadian carriers are pretty anxious to get their hands on these new devices. The fact that Telus, as of January of this year, now has reasonable data rate plans makes this device all the more compelling.

That's what the courier delivered to me today...and I've managed to restrain myself from opening it because I didn't have time to do an unboxing/first impressions video. Look for one tomorrow - even though I have a bad cold and will probably sound completely ridiculous on camera...but for you guys, I'll do it! ;-) HTC is sending a Touch Diamond to all Mobius attendees, so you'll be seeing lots of news/reviews popping up over the next week.

UPDATE: Well, I woke up today feeling about 500% worse than last night, so the Diamond unboxing will have to wait for a few days.

If you've been itching to get your HTC Touch Diamond fix, Expansys now has the product in stock - at the time of this writing they have 134 in stock, selling for $795.95 USD. The HTC Touch Diamond has a lot in common with the HTC Touch Pro announced earlier today, the biggest difference being the lack of a keyboard and microSD card slot, but the addition of 4 GB of on-board storage. All purchased made through the Pocket PC Thoughts Expansys affiliate store go to help support the site, and your support is greatly appreciated. [Affiliate]

UPDATE: Interested in a group buy? I've spoken to Expansys and they've indicated that if between 5 and 9 units are ordered, a $25 discount would be applicable. If 10 or more units are ordered, they could do a $50 discount. Anyone interested? We might want to wait for the official UK release as well since the comments in this thread seem to indicate this is a Hong Kong version.