Camera Phones Plaza

HTC Touch was the first real competitor for the incumbent iPhone, and we can easily observe that HTc was trying to capitalize on Apple's touch devices' popularity, but we all know that Windows Mobile is more open, and in the same time much clunkier that iPhone's OS X. HTC Touch had a finger friendly skin, but iPhone was built from the beginning as a consumer friendly product. The second generation, HTC Touch Diamond, with its TouchFLO 3D is ready to top iPhone, and the support for Opera Mobile 9.5 instead of Mobile IE ensures flawless websurfing. Photo albums can be browsed and music albums listened from the homescreen, the phone which wakes up when you remove the stylus and many other cool features make of HTC Touch Diamond "the most important product for HTC this year", like HTC CFO, Cheng Hui-min said also.

When you purchase this product, you will find in the box the phone itself, the Li-Ion battery, an extra stylus, stereo headphones, AC charger and UK adapter with US travel adapter, an USB data cable and the installation CDs.

This smartphone looks pretty good in pictures, but the sleek mirrored face and the prism effect give you a "wow" sensation when you hold it in your hands. It is quite small, much smaller than you can see it in the pictures on the Internet, and because it is 4'' tall x 2'' wide and 0.4'' deep, and weights only 3.8 ounces, you won't loose it in your pants pocket, even if it seems to be so small.<

HTC Touch Diamond has a 2.8 inch display with a resolution of 680x480 pixels, on which text and images looked vibrant, clear and sharp. The phone has also an orientation sensor, so the orientation of the screen will be changed each time you change the position of the phone, horizontally or vertically. Below the display, there are the tactile controls: the Home key, back, talk and end buttons, and a keypad for directions which has in the center the select button. All keys are easy to press, and the select key has a slightly concave shape.

This smartphone runs the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition, and since Touch Diamond uses the TouchFLO 3D interface, the new "Getting Started" menu will be accessible through the Windows menu. HTC Diamond surfs the Web on EDGE, and it is also equipped with Wi-Fi. It doesn't offer the latest Flash Lite 2, but there is Adobe Flash Lite 2, without FLV support, but watching YouTube videos is possible with a preloaded YouTube applications. Touch Diamond has also GPS for turn-by-turn directions and real-time tracking.

HTC Diamond Touch has a 3.2 Mp camera, with 4x zoom and video recording capabilities and sic capture modes. You can choose between five resolutions and four quality settings for still photos, and you can modify white balance, brightness and effects also.This mobile phone has a rated talk time of 5.5 hours and almost 12 days of time on standby.

This HTC smartphone has a beautiful touch screen and an user friendly interface, Windows Mobile offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3.2 Mp camera and GPS, but it is quite sluggish and the call quality is also a minus. All in all, this phone has a quite good design and it is a great feature set, but we can only expect the performance issues to be solved soon.