Ladies and Gentlemen, The HTC Touch Diamond.. iPhone Killer?
by Jody Mitoma on May 8, 2008 at 11:46 am
I wouldn’t be writing about this right now if I didn’t think this thing had any chance of taking over the iPhone.
The HTC Touch Diamond is a cellphone with a 3.2MP camera, Google Maps, a YouTube App, 3D Weather, 3D Contacts, True GPS, and an accelerometer.
What makes this better than the iPhone?
- Well, for starters, it’s got more than 1 button, and doesn’t look like it’s too cluttered, which is good.
- The design is super slick. Yes, even more slick than the iPhone’s design.
- The interface looks very user friendly, and gorgeous at that.
- Get this - the screen resolution is DOUBLE that of the iPhone’s, and is in fact a bit smaller than the iPhone’s screen. That’s godda be one helluva crisp picture, man! Just imagine… 640×480 resolution on a 2.8″ screen. Wow.
- A camera on the front of the phone, for use with video conferencing.
What advantages does the iPhone have over the HTC Touch Diamond?
- Multi-touch on the iPhone, while the HTC Touch Diamond is rumored to only support single-touch.
- The Diamond uses Opera as it’s web browser (at least it doesn’t use Microsoft IE!), while the iPhone users Safari.
- The Diamond has a smaller screen, but like mentioned above, double the lines of resolution.
A few more HTC Touch Diamond specs:
A series of Youtube videos demonstrates various features: Photos, Weather, Contacts, Music, in actual use. Other video: accelerometer game. Photos and hands-on at Crave.cnet.co.uk. The phone will launch initially in Europe and Asia in June, with a U.S. launch later.
Once you’re done watching all the videos above, have a look at this official HTC product page showing off the HTC’s 3D interface. You will not — I repeat — you will not be dissapointed. That’s a promise. Holy shit.
I was pretty damn confident that the next generation 3G iPhone would be my next cellphone purchase, but I can’t say I’m so confident anymore. Looks like I’ll have to look further into this one before I make the purchase. Cellphone’s are really becoming beautiful devices now-a-days. I like it.
But will the HTC Touch Diamond have an App Store?… Probably not. I’m thinkin’ iPhone. :]
(Source: MacRumors)
Related Stories:
Subscribe to The RSS Feed or our Audio Podcast for Live updates!
Posted in Hardware Related, Miscellaneous, News Related
Subscribe via E-mail
Subscribe via RSS
What is RSS?
May 8th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Wow this article stinks of “cash for positive comment”.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Trust me, Jody ain’t gettin’ paid off for that. It is a pretty slick interface, though it fairly reeks of “me too” iPhone aping. (Just have a look at their product page. They even have their own version of Coverflow for album and contact browsing.) However, it’s still a Windows Mobile device, and I’ve have plenty of experience with WinMo devices. It doesn’t matter what kind of pretty UI they slap on top of WinMo and try to hide its true roots, because it’s still WinMo, and thus will have its fair share of bugs, clunkiness, and considerable trouble handling multitasking smoothly.
Makes me wonder if the phone’s alarms work. There isn’t a single version of Windows Mobile that I’ve used (2003, WM5, WM6) that could properly wake the device up to trigger an alarm. A freakin’ alarm! What should be the simplest thing in the world to do and no version of Windows Mobile that I’ve used has been able to get it right.
But anyway. Nice phone, slick UI, but ultimately Windows Mobile will prevent it from being any sort of iPhone killer. (Quite apart from the fact that iPhone has too much momentum for HTC to catch up, and there are too many other me-too devices out there competing for a slice of Apple’s mobile pie.)
Plus, I’m sorry, but that phone is fugly. Decent minimalist front, but the back reminds me of one of Nokia bizarre-looking fashion phones with those unattractive, seemingly random angular textures ‘n crap.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Hi Eric,
That was a very insightful response!
I didn’t realise that article was written by Jody - thought it was a Macrumours original.
Part of what makes the iPhone such a masterpiece is the fact that the screen is so prominent with only small framing. This HTC Touch just looks like any other phone. They have sacrificed roughly 33% of the available space to accomodate 5 buttons! Bad use of real estate in my opinion.
Regards.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Actually, I like physical buttons, but the iPhone’s UI does do a very good job of making virtual buttons easy to use. However, the smaller screen is very typical HTC, though the original HTC Touch did have less real estate devoted to physical buttons than this new version does. (Go figure…)
The biggest thing that kills the Touch Diamond for me is that it’s still using a resistive touchscreen. For a device intended to be used with the fingers, this just bad design. Apple was smart to go with capacitive, allowing for the use of smooth, firm glass instead of mushy layers of plastic.