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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice to look at in more ways than one. A solid hit from HTC., June 28, 2008
I purchased the European version of the Diamond for use in the US on ATT. I have not had any problems so far with voice service. Data service is slower than I had on my Blackjack, but I knew that would happen. The Diamond has Wifi and it has been easy to connect to my home network and to hot spots to get broadband internet service.
The Diamond was designed to be a one hand device. It really is possible to do everything with one hand, even use the camera. (I recommend using two hands when using any camera for better stability.) The 3.2 megapixel camera isn't bad for a mobile phone, certainly better than many I've used before- when there is sufficient light. There is no flash, so your indoor photography will be disappointing.
The Touch Flo interface which seemed almost like frosting on top of plain old Windows Mobile in other HTC touch devices, is very much a fully intergrated part of the system on the Diamond. It runs very well and is every bit as intuitive as other touch oriented devices. You can turn Touch Flo off, but I don't know why you'd want to.
Diamond's good looks demonstrate that Windows Mobile devices can be great looking as well as powerful. The phone is attractive off or on, but it also great to look at when you're working on it because of the VGA screen. After several days, it still startles me how much clearer text and graphics are on this phone.
Thanks HTC for including the Opera browser. You can still browse the web using pages for mobile units if you'd like with IE, but you will want to step up to the real internet with Opera. Scroll, pan, zoom if you need to, but with that VGA screen, you may not even need to do so.
Battery life on the Diamond is as advertised unless you make heavy use of Wifi or the music player or camera. These will significantly diminish your time between charges.
A few final points: yes, the phone collects fingerprints. So do all touch devices. Sound quality on calls has been good in my experience. Sound quality on the music player is not as good as on a dedicated MP3 device. The FM radio is a great feature. I hadn't come close to filling a 2Gb micro SD card on my Blackjack so the 4Gb internal storage on the Diamond should be sufficient. Will you master every touch move immediately? No. Within a day or so? Yes.
If you live in Europe or Asia or live in the US but don't need 3G service, the Diamond is a great phone. It's pretty darn close to great even with its present US limitation.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Need Further Work, July 18, 2008
The Good: Full features - e-mail, internet, GPS, photos, all the connections you will need (tri-band, wi-fi, 3G, GPRS, Edge). Looks great, can carry in a pocket without knowing it's there. It avoids many problems of the i-Phone (i.e. you can replace your own battery, and sound on calls is good.)
The Bad: Problems with almost every feature that I expect will be worked out in superior phones in the next year or two.
The Big Problems: Battery life is very short. With even moderate e-mail or internet use, one charge will not last a full day. And recharging takes longer than any other phone I've had.
The screen is too small. I would be happy to carry a slightly bigger phone to get another 1/2 inch larger screen. Anyone who's shortsighted or has big thumbs will have problems using many applications and commands on the small screen.
Other Problems: Using your thumb on the screen to scroll takes quite a bit of practice, and in many applications, it's VERY difficult to avoid selecting an item when you're trying to scroll. For example, try adding a new city in the weather application - it's nearly impossible to scroll through the list of countries and cities without selecting unintentionally, and selecting the wrong item means you have to start all over again.
Windows Mobile 6.1 is billed by Microsoft as simplified access to applications compared to 6.0, but I find this software more complicated, requiring more button taps than the Windows 6.0 on my Dopod C500. Finding various settings can be extremely difficult, since many settings appear in different places and don't always seem logical: want to change the settings on your e-mail? The one you're looking for could be hidden in 3 or 4 different places.
Entry Device: The "letter recognizer," using the stylus on the screen, is much faster than a QWERTY keyboard, and is great for composing a long e-mail or text message. But to send a quick text message, using a phone pad with dictionary is still much easier and requires only one hand. The Diamond has an on-screen phone pad available (no hardware phone pad), but changing from one entry method to another (from stylus entry to phone pad entry) with one hand is very difficult. Unless they make changes to allow access to the phone pad faster and easier, it would be better to have a slide out hardware pad. One of the great features on my Dopod C500 was easy switching between the phone keypad and the QWERTY keyboard. HTC needs to work on this with the Diamond.
The internal-only storage (4 gig) is large, but my guess is a changeable storage card would be better. Also, the Diamond has only one port for charger, USB connection, or hands-free headphones, and changing the SIM card requires removal of the battery. The camera, though advertised as 3.2 mp, is practically useless. All the photos come out blurry, and unless taken outdoors in daylight are too dark.
Finally, I use the phone in Thailand, where 3G is not available. Using the internet with GPRS is normally very slow, and getting the internet to work when roaming in other countries is difficult. The application to download my Hotmail rarely works, and nobody can tell me if the problem is with the phone or with the Windows Live servers. I have to check my hotmail through the internet browser instead, which is very slow. I have a feeling that 2 or 3 years from now, we'll have far superior download speeds on mobile phones.
This phone is a very good effort, but HTC needs to work out the problems to have a really superior product.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Almost There..., August 26, 2008
There is not much I can really add to these early reviews. The phone is pretty good. My reception is clear and the phone feels sturdy in your hands. I have to agree with the disappointment in the battery life - although the manual does say it may take a few charging to get the battery to specifications but my phone is dead at the end of the day.
I have had about three resets since owning it now for about five days and a sync with my Vista Dell yielded some pretty strange messages that have since disappeared. The screen is gorgeous and the touch is good but no where near the iTouch or I assume the iPhone. It took about a half day to get the hang of what kind of touch was required.
Yes the screen gets tacky with touching but so do all the other products. Textured protectors will help and hopefully better ones, than the one it ships with, will come out as time goes on.
Cost was a big factor in choosing this phone over the iPhone which is ridiculously expensive in Canada with limited carriers. Will I stay with it? I will give it two weeks to improve the battery life - if it doesn't improve I will turn it back in on my 30 day DOA clause. Could I live with it for my three year contract? I really don't think that it is that durable but I might be wrong. In the end - even though I don't like the OS - I will probably be forced to go with the Blackberry.
I hope the battery thing resolves.
I recommend caution when purchasing this phone and be aware of these early problems.
Update:
My first phone experienced software issues that resulted in daily restarts after about six months. The weather would never update without something going wrong. The software issues were acknowledged by my providers Tech Support. (I thought updates would be pushed to me - nope) It was replaced with a refurbished unit.
On the first refurb unit bottom panel buttons went n/s after 3 months. No drop. No hard use. Just didn't work one day. However the software issues that plagued my first unit seemed to be resolved. Got another refurb unit (my second).
The second refurb had again serious software issues and increased restarts of two to three a day. Again software issues acknowledged by provider. Again no fix.
Finally I spoke with my provider and it agreed to give me a credit toward any of the smartphones in their line. I chose the Palm Pro. See review.
In light of my HTC experience over the course of a year I really can't recommend this phone. And I would have serious reservation about any of its other products.
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