HTC Touch Diamond2 Review

Software:

A brand new feature is to be found in your contacts, which looks great and quite out of character of typical Windows based phones. Names are showed in large fields with a single small pic next to each one. You can scroll the list, pick out the first letter or search any name. Adding new contacts reveals huge “most used details” boxes that let you use your fingers comfortably. You´ll have to fall back on the stylus In case you need to see all available information fields (and there are many on Windows Mobile devices), because that gets you to the standard interface.



Clicking onto a contact makes a pleasing information screen spring up on the screen, but that´s just the first of all tabs. The next ones show you all exchanged messages in a threaded messaging style, emails as well as more details on call history. Basically, all communication can be easily accessed in one place, which comes in handy indeed. This is somewhat reminiscent of the synergy of webOS.



HTC Touch Diamond2 lends color to screen keyboard design as well – you have a horizontal QWERTY layout, while the vertical one sports different design and buttons in a chess-like pattern. This should make the life of many people a whole lot easier and we like the final result. People who happen to have thicker fingers will most probably fall upon using the stylus.



Unfortunately, there are cases when you don´t have a choice and will have to get back to the standard Windows Mobile 6.1 interface, which as we have been saying all over again, is far from being the most good looking thing on the planet. To help ease the pain, HTC has increased the customized menus that pop up when clicking the soft keys.

Unlike the Samsung OMNIA, HTC doesn´t try to pass the Touch Diamond2 as a multimedia monster. Its camera features a likeable interface, but is somewhat uncomfortable to use with one hand, since there is no camera shutter button, but just a software onscreen one. Outdoor picture quality is good, although not something to get ecstatic over. The lack of camera flash tips us off camera won´t be any good for taking snapshots indoors.

Most pictures and good enough to see on your phone and you can browse them from a convenient gallery application.






As we previously mentioned, the music player has quite good interface. Unfortunately, sound out of the built-in loudspeaker is nothing short of disaster and not great with your headset on (even the Audio Booster equalizer doesn´t seem to help at the least). We do think it would be great if there was a miniUSB to 3.5 mm. jack adapter in the set, so anyone willing to listen to some music could plug in a pair of decent earphones. Things are not looking better when it comes to the video capabilities of this device either. The HTC Touch Diamond2 can play MP4 clips only (either H.263 or H.264 coded). Video quality is decent at higher resolutions, but we noticed sound lagged behind video itself, plus we saw the device skip frames at times, both of which made for somewhat unpleasing experience. Installing third party video players gets you both DivX and Xvid support, but this is something that a number of high end “not that smart” phones sport by default.








The HTC Diamond2 doesn’t come brimming with preloaded software, but Windows Mobile 6.1 features loads of apps anyway. Preloaded are the Teeter game, Google Maps and QuickGPS to help you pinpoint satellites fast, RSS Hub, Adobe Reader LE and of course, Office Mobile.