HTC Touch Diamond (CDMA)
Phone Scoop Review
Oct 3, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
HTC offers up a CDMA version of its Touch Diamond for Sprint. It is a mixed bag of HTC goodness and Windows Mobile madness. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
A FLAWED STONE
Well, I got my hands on one of these things and I cant say that I am impressed at all
Sure the Touch Flo 3D is pretty to look at but it works terribly. I had to rub it a few times to get it to work the way I wanted. Typing a text message on the screen is a bit difficult as the screen is too small. Therefore the keys are tiny. Try touching them correctly. It's hard
Sure it is a sexy looking phone but it isn't as user friendly as one would think. I would rather bring this back and wait for the version with the keyboard. Should prove to do a better job.
AGAIN, this is probably one of the nicest looking handsets on the market. Even with the funky colored red/pink back.
Call quality was good, and the reception is not bad at all. I had the Instinct before and the signal strength on this one is much better. The battery is so so. Too bad its not EVDO Rev A That does make a difference my friends. I will go back to my curve and wait for the Diamond PRO to come out in OCT....... Don't let me stop you from buying this phone. Remember, you have 30 days to bring it back to Sprint if you don't like it
ONLY IN AMERICA!!!!
Call me crazy...........
.... but I prefer the Original Touch MP6900 over the Diamond.
Pros:
3.2 Megapixel camera. It's in a class of its own.
Not very bulky.
Big, bright screen.
No's:
Limited to 4GB of internal memory, no expansion slot.
Phone heats up after charging for 10 minutes
Battery life sucks (and yes, I know how to close what I'm not using).
It took me FOREVER to get past the initial setup (it's not me because I've used many Windows Mobile phones, and know what I'm doing).
Call clarity wasn't up to par.
As I said, I prefer the original Touch. I have a 16GB card in it, and NONE of the issues that the "latest and greatest" seems to have. Maybe I had a bad one? Who knows? I hope this review helps ya.
Horrible Software - Avoid at all costs
Cons:
Screen scratches VERY easily potentially compromising return of phone.
Battery life is terrible. They should sell it with a spare battery and extra chargers, one for every place you spend time regularly.
Virtual keyboard is slow, slow, slow.
Software is the opposite of intuitive. If you want to memorize a manual, this software may be for you. However, things that I expect to be on a menu simply are not there. It is a maze. I can't find things I should be able to find, can't turn things on I should be able to turn on, can't turn off things I ought to be able to turn off. The phone does things mysteriously including annoying things like the screen turning dark when in the middle of using it so as to make it impossible to complete what was being done.
My children have less expensive Palm Treos in which the software is much simpler and more intuitive and includes some things not found on this phone. My wife has a used HTC Mogul bought off of ebay and it is six steps above the Touch Diamond. The software is easier to use and the physical keyboard is much better than the virtual keyboard, i.e. keyboard which requires a stylus.
Cannot reliably use the phone to access the internet. First, it is painfully slow. Next the visual image is tiny. Then the circular gizmo which supposedly allows the user to zoom in and out is difficult to use and unreliable.
In short, the phone is a disaster. Don't even waste your time reading other reviews. Move on to consider a phone which might actually be useful to you.
I like it better than the iphone
I wanted an iphone, but I have a sweet deal with Sprint so I got the Touch Diamond. It's different than the iphone:
PROs (compared to iphone):
1) It's smaller and lighter than the iphone. Basically, the perfect size.
2) The Opera browser is sweet. VERY easy to use one-handed. Just double-tap a point on the screen to zoom in, text automatically wraps to fit the zoom. This is fine for 95% of my browsing, but if you want to fine-tune the zoom level, all you have to do is brush your thumb clockwise or counter-clockwise around the main circular button under the screen. I don't know why anyone would want to have to use two fingers to zoom with the iphone.
3) You can run multiple programs at the same time. This isn't particularly useful, but I can see how switching back and forth between phone/programs/etc. without closing them could be useful.
CONs:
1) The phone is NOT particularly easy to use, because it's Windows Mobile. The Touch Diamond can be picked up quickly to some extent, but there were several behaviors I did not like and it took me awhile to dig through all the Windows Mobile options to change the behavior of the phone to be what I wanted.
2) For some options in Windows Mobile, you will need to click on things that are fairly small. I had no problems, but if you do there is a stylus that conveniently fits into the phone.
3) At least one minor quirk, like Opera not launching once until I rebooted the phone. Maybe one other quirk I'm forgetting. Not a big deal.
4) Since the screen is physically smaller than the iphone (though twice the resolution), typing can be more difficult than the iphone although I got used to it just fine.
CONCLUSION:
Interface isn't as polished or convenient as the iphone, but I think the pros outweigh the cons and I would probably prefer this over the iphone.
Great device
Great size, perfect size and weight phone really. Much smaller and lighter than the Pro.
Yes it gets warm but any phone with this much "stuff" crammed into it will.
Quality control and build quality seem much better on this device than the Touch Pro, had zero issues the Pro has been having.
Yes theres no hard keyboard but unless youre typing 100 emails a day or very long detailed emails the touch screen keyboard wont be a huge issue.
Overall great device and great to carry in a case or pocket.
