I was afraid of this.

You should have tried typing a text message or email with it. Something tells me it won't be pleasant - or anywhere near fast.

I own neither but would still probably pick the iPhone over this. Multitouch is just way too sweet.

Love the animated weather app.

The phone looks good, and as long as they truly have fixed the sluggish touch interface issues could really be a contender for the iPhone. In the end though, an abundance of apps are what's needed to truly be a great phone. The iPhone's popularity is greatly due to its developer support for great third party apps. Features are great but if there is no software to use it on, then it is going to sink.

Very pretty, but no real functional info. You know somethings wrong if the 'hands on' is only 30 seconds. Now the iPhone demo, THAT can sell a phone...if only it wasn't with AT&T...

Seems to be a lot of whimsy in the design of that interface. The animated weather forecast looks sort of dandy, but the windshield wiper gag is sort of goofy.

wow, that is actually pretty sexy. Addy, as you said, not necessarily an "iphone killer" but definitely a contender in the sexy phone race

its also probably the sleekest winmo phone out there

Id be onboard if it had a dial pad for texting and emails.

Plus it'll work with most WinMo software that I already have? Eeess niiiiice.

So wait a second, they're putting it in the hands of Gizmodo blogger types without a finalized software? Sounds like bullshit to me.

"it's sluggish"
There we go again! That's what I was afraid of. And surely recognize from my current HTC TyTN. Or better yet, not recognize as such anymore, since my TyTN is "in repair" for over two months now.

I don't really mind though, I've got a Nokia 6021 on loan, and that actually does what it's supposed to do (i.e. being a phone).
No more 'splaining how to actually dial a number to the Mrs. No more waiting for several seconds between pushing the hang up button and it actually ending the call (very important if you want to call the other party names). No more dropped calls. Decent battery life. And so on.

True, I miss 24/7 access to my email and calendar, and synching w. Outlook is even worse, but these drawbacks are nowhere near enough to make up for HTC/WinMo's nuisances.

I'll pass.

This thing is gonna need some Viagra for it's processor to improve performance.

It's a step in the right direction. But frankly anyone who makes a cell phone intended to be a smart phone/multimedia device needs to actually use an iPhone for a month or 2. Then they will realize what the golden standard is and either give up and stop wasting their time, or make a real effort to measure up.

I'm just amazed at how all of these companies are completely missing the point. The iPhone's success is due, in part, to the fact that they took everything about the conventional phone market at the time and threw it out the window and started from scratch. The current batch of "iPhone killers" are doing nothing but copying (poorly) what Apple did, when they could really do much better simply by taking an unconventional approach, and come out with something truly innovative.

Size does matter. Two hands is too many.
From the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X brick in 1984 [www.msnbc.msn.com]
to this HTC Touch Diamond, cellphone evolution has reduced size, weight, cost, while increasing capabilities beyond the dreams of even Rudy Krolopp.
Having done a in-hand side-by-side comparison with the HTC Touch and the iPhone... for me the iPhone killer part isn't GUI or functionality which seems to have been improved on this phone, it's size.
The HTC Diamond form factor, similar to the HTC Touch makes it ideal for a shirt pocket and even comes with a lanyard attachment which I use constantly, especially while biking and can operate one-handed.
Don't get me wrong, I couldn't love my 32G iPod Touch more (except if it had Flash).
On the other hand, now, even forgiving the battery, lack of extra storage, blah blah blah issues, the iPhone, as a communications tool, seems downright cludgy .

They should just call all these things iClones and send them to rehab!

They just don't get it.

No, no. no!

It is a shame it is built on Windows mobile platform. (over the past 7 years having owned winmo pdas and phone, I am not looking forward to future generations of windows mobile... fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!) Put it on Android and we shall talk.

damn, i though there were going to be more HTC phones announced. I dont care for the iphone genre phones... i want qwertyness...with slimness

@TOWken22: Its a Windows Mobile phone, there are a lot applications for it. Just an example: handandgo.com reports 4,106 applications for sale for the HTC Touch. For Windows Mobile in general they claim more than 18,000 applications.

iPhone its just starting third party applications support. Sure it will catch up very fast.

I've never been one for touch screens but, I do think this looks nice.

I think it is more important for the phone to remain primarily a phone and not attempt the iPhone's multimedia aspects (thats what my iPod Photo is for)

That windshield wiper on the weather app was sick!

@rainfever: You can only get so slim with a sliding QWERTY. If you make it too skinny, you run the risk of being left with a flimsy sliding mechanism, and less room for better components.

I am waiting for a second gen iPhone.

I like windows mobile just fine. It's nice that HTC is modding it with its TouchFLO layer, it just adds to WinMo's adaptability.

I am in love

That youtube app interface looks really clean and last.fm-ish. Put something like that in the youtube site, and maybe it'll be worth visiting.

Boy, the back of that phone really intrigues me. It makes me want to pick it up to see how it fits in my hand and if it's easier to cradle on my shoulder or something.

I want to buy one...

@DeLarge: I stand corrected. I just never see too many people using cool third party apps on the WinMo smartphones, most likely because most of the people I know with these phones only use them for work (Office app, email client, etc.)

Well deep down inside I'm a wee bit joyfull that the next gen phone sucks as much as my Touch. This just confirms that I will enver own another HTC product.

@vertigo:

try THC?

The whimsy iPhone apps need to go 2.0. Weather with no map? Even Calculator is getting an upgrade!

well anyway thanks to the iphone dev team we will be able to run windows mobile and this on the iphone

Gah, seeing this phone just makes me want to hold off on purchasing the LG Vu!

Don't think the sluggish response is solely the software, it's a combination of the fact resistive touch tend to be less responsive (or rather it needs a harder press to register) and that the processor is slower in this phone. Seems pretty much every touchscreen phone after the iphone used by this site is deemed sluggish. Have there been ANY touchscreen phone after the iphone that has been responsive? Oh yeah, reminds me, hopefully Andriod phones come soon.

[www.gee-jay.com]

Check HTC.com for full specs...

I like.

Greetings from Switzerland, Gee-Jay.

@MosesMonster: LG makes crap phones, so does Motorola. Period.

There's a difference between "sluggish" and "different UI", which seems to pass over the heads of most reviewers.

The animations and 3D effects, which make it much more interesting than the mostly 2D iPhone UI, show the cpu / gpu are fine.

The UI simply has a larger touch gesture vocabulary, which made the programmers take a different approach: they wait until the gesture is done before taking action.

For example, small swipe = scroll, larger swiped = next menu item, circle = zoom, L-shape = rotate, etc.

Waiting is similar to the way the iPhone doesn't register keypresses, instead waiting for your finger to lift up.

That said, some people are clearly confused by this behavior, and HTC should probably lessen or change the vocabulary in order to give more of an instant feedback.

Oh, and after my less-than-stellar results with my Touch I can certainly trust HTC to fix any software problems that might crop up. How stupid am I again?

I love it, I'm an Iphone owner so I won't by it but I love it. It looks so slick and comfortable to use. To bad they didn't release this before people were made aware that a new iphone was comming out.

@MosesMonster: No. I thought the Vu was cool, but I dropped in to an AT&T Wireless store downtown to compare it to my iPhone for kicks (thinking about dropping this one for a second-gen model and wanted to consider the Vu as well.) Ugh-- what a POS. It is too lightweight, feels like a toy, and is entirely too much shiny plastic. The touchscreen wasn't as responsive as I expected, and the menu system was clunky and kind of visually monotonous-- the lack of color made it hard to differentiate menu options without really paying close attention. It's not horrible, but at $399 after contract I'd say it's $200 too much.