Gizmodo
So, this is the Touch Diamond. It's small, slim, "a holistic experience," according to Horace Luke, HTC's Chief Innovations Officer, and "just like your life." Out in Europe and Asia next month, we should get our hands on it later on this year, and it's the closest thing so far to an iPhone that hasn't come out of Cupertino. Not surprising, since Luke and his team wanted the design to be worthy of MoMA. I'm just not sure about the diamond design on the back. Here is a gallery, the specs and some of the choice quotes from the presentation:
• Windows Mobile 6.1
• VGA Screen
• Quad-band HSDPA 7.2
• One-touch navigation, single-finger dialing
• The accelerometer rotates pictures as you rotate the phone
• One-touch music playback
• An animated weather forecast app
• Full web browser—Opera—with zoom-in
• Microsoft promises IE 6 coming soon
• Youtube app
• Available June in Europe on Orange and the rest of the world TBD
• Orange mobile TV
• No price yet
According to HTC boss Peter Chou, the Touch Diamond is "simplified user experience with fun usability." The word innovation has been bandied around by just about everyone who's got up on stage at the launch.
"In 2008, Vista will make mobile internet fun."
Chou said that HTC is the first company in the world to do a 3-D animated touchscreen interface, and reiterated his desire to make browser and web-based applications as easy as a phone call. "Just a touch. Just one hand. We don't need too many fingers, just one touch." Speak for yourself, mate.
Horace Luke says his team studied the fashion industry as well as the design industry when coming up with the Diamond Touch. He reckons the design is iconic enough to be recognized by people from across the street, and cited the "meticulous craftsmanship like a Swiss watch." The phone's UI is so like the iPhone it's uncanny. You can flick through your contacts rather like a Rolodex, calling is one-click, and your messages are "like beautiful words dancing in the air."
Andy Lees, one of the Senior VPs at Microsoft was playing with his Diamond Touch yesterday. "It makes me smile, but it enables me to get things done that need to be done. With one finger." [HTC]
Comments
Dear Mr. HTC Diamond phone thingy,
Do you have a nice little slide-out QWERTY keyboard?
pictures? Specs?
any list of specs or what it does?
The HTC Touch Diamond was launched? Who knew?
i am already bored of my iphone.. everyone around me has it now :(
I bet tey are so frustrated that they are making a nice looking ui but cant do anything about the crap its built on top of, and thats what the htc's always come down to in the end, you come out of a nice looking front end into the horrible winmob, also unresponsive touch screens.
I will not announce iPhone competitors in the weeks before the iPhone 2
I will not announce iPhone competitors in the weeks before the iPhone 2
I will not announce iPhone competitors in the weeks before the iPhone 2
I will not announce iPhone competitors in the weeks before the iPhone 2
That diamond look on the back reminds me of the Nokia Prism too much. Nice specs though, it is a real shame.
HTC introduces the ugly stick, revisited.
@bookmark: That is why you need to Jailbreak your iPhone so you are cooler than all your friends that have a normal run of the mill boring iPhone.
And on the topic of this phone. I would just like to say that I went to their website. And if their phone is anything like their poorly designed, slow, and heavily Flash-based website, then I want to part of their phone and it's shitty UI
EDIT: I WANT NOOOOO PART OF THIS PHONE!
Will this come to AT&T or what US carrier?
GPS?
FTA: "It makes me smile, but it enables me to get things done that need to be done. With one finger."
You know what else needs a single finger? iPhan boyz.
Take your little insecure selves and go "jailbreak" your stupid phone. God, get over it.
OK I,m a sucker for slim phones
A holistic experience? Just like my life? And Apple's marketing is bad. Wheeew.
Although, my life is a series of jagged facets, some darker than others, depending on what angle you look at it, so maybe they're right.
Windows Mobile? WHY SIR, WHY.
@nachobel: Windows Mobile is the best!
I was expecting someone to have written this comment already, but I guess I was wrong. So here goes:
"It makes me smile, but it enables me to get things done that need to be done. With one finger."
Oh yeah? I got yer finger right here, pal!
Bad move releasing this a month before the iPhone announcement.
@robotleawesome: Actually, their hope is probably to deter some people from switching. If people know they have another option, they might not be so hasty to go pick up an IP2.
Whoa! Here's a video. Damn, it looks so goooodd.....
+ Watch video
@Joseph:
I wouldnt say that if I were you. It looks promising to me like the Sony Xperia.
@metalhaze: Did you see how the specification page wasn't in English--Gotta love the QA.
"Microsoft promises IE 6 coming soon" - Somehow, I don't think anyone will mind waiting for that feature.
@robotleawesome: Why? I think that now is the time. What sort of attention will their product get after iPhone 2.0?
did htc compare this to the iphone? or is the author just bunching fanboys' panties?
its so sad to see people take bait day in day out.
i think its like a game of starcraft - they just click and the wars begin HAHA!!!
maybe i will testdrive one once it becomes available.
Windows Mobile 6.1 a "simplified user experience with fun usability???"
FAIL.
Beautiful expensive phone with a beautiful interface.
But, running Windows Mobile 6.1.
Talk about polishing a turd!
don't compare my life to your POS phone. YOU DON'T KNOW ME!
I wonder if they'll come out with a QWERTY version, that might be pretty sweet (Sony XPERIA X1 competitor), but not iPhone killer. I'll wait to see a phone that actually kills the iPhone before declaring that (hint: HTC Battlebot).
I know that you can't help but compare stuff like this to the iPhone, and the iPhone is very very cool, but you know this thing had to be in development for a looong time. I realize a lot of the features are similar to the iPhone, but you know that when someone figures out a good way to do something with an interface everything starts to emulate it. All the different cell phones, computers, media/mp3 players, they are all so similar, but someone has to make it first and lately that someone has been Apple.
@bookmark: LOL
Yup, that statement just about sums up the demographic perfectly.
iPhone-esque? Seems the only thing they have in common is a good design and a touch screen, qualities, which the iphones doesn't own.
640x480 resolution with a smaller diagonal than the iPhone? Holy crap, thats a dense screen.
This looks great but if they included VGA-out capability , it would really be closer to the Nirvana Phone and challenge the iPhone.
[nirvanaphone.com]
Haha, advertising speak is so hilarious
How is this "iPhone-esque" ?
Just because it's a phone with nice screen size and touch capability does not make it "iPhone-esque".
That's akin to saying that Lebron James is "Jordan-esque" because they both shoot the basketball.
It's not like Apple is the only who ever thought of those things.
This phone looks original and it looks sweet...
and I happen to own an iPhone (as if you care).
@frogpelt: everything bearing a touchscreen is "iPhone-esque" here, I mean, the iPhone was the first phone to have a touchscreen wasn't it?...
No, I phone wasn't the first. all of HTC's Pocket PC's were out before this, but just with a carp UI until the "touch' came out. Which may have been before iphone.
Wait is that guy in the picture the guy who's ass I want to whoop? 'Cause he actually looks frail enough for me to beat him down.
god damn gizmodo. every post does not need an apple reference. this is no more "iphone-esque" than something white is "iPod colored"
@Kidd: that's what my excessive use of sarcasm was trying to get at, iphone wasn't the first in anything.
@notatoad: agreed
IE6? WHAT THE F*$*#@
asrb
@shinchan: Kidd is obviously American, they don't get sarcasm or irony....
How is that at all iPhone-esque? It looks nothing like it in my opinion. Everything with a screen is NOT a clone of the iPhone! We could go ahead and say the iPhone was a palm-pilot clone because it's flat and has a touch-sensitive screen.
With the debut of touchscreens on almost every electronic device, I'm not at all sure how we're not past the infantile "iPhone clone" phase.
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