Articles tagged with: touch diamond

'Diamond' and 'white' are not words normally placed together to form a premium product. Still, HTC reckons a new white coat is just the thing to give its Touch Diamond 'a touch of class to impress even the most style conscious fashionista'. Quite.

The black and white options bring the Diamond into line with its arch rival, Apple's iPhone 3G. Like the iPhone there's no actual hardware difference between the two shades so it's purely down to aesthetics.

There's no indication of pricing but we guess the white will be around the same price as the original SIM free. Just don't go telling any tramps you have £430-worth of 'Diamond White' on you.

[Pocket Lint]

HTC may not have named it as such, but its new Touch Pro smartphone is really nothing more than a Touch Diamond with a keyboard. Well, we say “nothing more” – the addition of a slide-out Qwerty keyboard similar to that on the TyTN II is no small thing, particularly if you plan to do a lot of typing in Windows Mobile (and don't like the look of the BlackBerry Bold).

It's a tough job overcoming the failings of Windows Mobile, but HTC has done a better job than most in recent times with its seriously sexy and potent smartphones. From the well-engineered Touch and Touch Dual to the all-singing, all dancing TyTN II, it has a strong record. But times change, and with the iPhone 3G just around the corner, can HTC keep it up?

The Touch Diamond, with its new TouchFLO 3D interface, tries as hard as any handset out there to mimic the iPhone's sleek, swish, multi-touch design. And unlike many other Windows Mobile devices, TouchFLO 3D completely replaces the Windows Mobile’s front end, making the traditional list-based design of the Today screen is a distant memory. Even our favourite Windows Mobile shell enhancement, SPB Mobile Shell, doesn't go as far as that. 

We've had the HTC Touch Diamond Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone in the Mobile Computer office for just over a week now and I'll be posting a full review in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I made a hands-on video report earlier today to show what the Touch Diamond looks like in a better context than a photo on a white background.

In the video I talk a little about the Touch Diamond's design (this is HTC's attempt to compete head-on with the iPhone) and more importantly, its TouchFLO 3D user interface. Now this slick Windows Mobile 'skin' has been widely criticised for being slow and HTC recently released a ROM update intended to fix it. So is Touch FLO 3D any snappier as a result? In a word, no...