Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches) - Gizmodo Comments

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

theorie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:02:18 EDT

i think it's funny how 100% of the people ripping on this phone have never even seen it in person.

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

michaelleung — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:04:27 EDT

I like this more than the iPhone, and I especially like the detailed touches they put on to it, like the windscreen wiper when it shows rain on the weather. Now, to put $580 together...

michaelleung

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

wild homes loves you but chooses darkness! — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:40:05 EDT

@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.

wild homes loves you but chooses darkness!

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

swpoison — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:52:55 EDT

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.

swpoison

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

wpns — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:46:38 EDT

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?

wpns

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

kdarling — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:01:46 EDT

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.

kdarling

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

ibelli — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:42:30 EDT

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

ibelli

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Gee-Jay — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:48:41 EDT

[www.gee-jay.com]

Check HTC.com for full specs...

I like.

Greetings from Switzerland, Gee-Jay.

Gee-Jay

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

stopcrazypp — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:34:14 EDT

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.

stopcrazypp

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

MosesMonster — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:43:40 EDT

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

MosesMonster

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

esh-satril — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:23:50 EDT

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

esh-satril

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

dagamer34 — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:25:56 EDT

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

dagamer34

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

ANoel — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:21:06 EDT

@vertigo:

try THC?

ANoel

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

vertigo — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:45:16 EDT

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

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

TOWken22 — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:31:14 EDT

@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.)

TOWken22

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

kibets — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:21:44 EDT

I want to buy one...

kibets

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

maven2k — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:06:21 EDT

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.

maven2k

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Groggy Banana — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:42:13 EDT

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.

Groggy Banana

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

blitzkrieg999 — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:41:18 EDT

I am in love

blitzkrieg999

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Wayde — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:21:45 EDT

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.

Wayde

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

MastaFalse — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:21:17 EDT

I am waiting for a second gen iPhone.

MastaFalse

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:04:59 EDT

@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.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Derek Devine — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:03:35 EDT

That windshield wiper on the weather app was sick!

Derek Devine

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Super_Moose — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:03:15 EDT

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)

Super_Moose

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

DeLarge — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:58:57 EDT

@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.

DeLarge

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

rainfever — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:55:08 EDT

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

rainfever

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

pipper — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:39:33 EDT

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.

pipper

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

altus — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:32:57 EDT

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

They just don't get it.

No, no. no!

altus

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

ANoel — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:22:18 EDT

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 .

ANoel

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:19:48 EDT

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.

workingonyourinvoice

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

sonicwind — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:13:16 EDT

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.

sonicwind

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Joseph — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:11:35 EDT

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

Joseph

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

papaguru — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:02:15 EDT

"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.

papaguru

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:54:47 EDT

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

workingonyourinvoice

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

SMG3er — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:47:38 EDT

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

SMG3er

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

dremon21 — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:37:53 EDT

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

dremon21

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

MrBlahBlah — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:36:34 EDT

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

MrBlahBlah

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:33:36 EDT

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.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

atomx — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:33:02 EDT

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...

atomx

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

TOWken22 — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:32:09 EDT

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.

TOWken22

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

werk — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:31:53 EDT

Love the animated weather app.

werk

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

N@tedog — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:30:19 EDT

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

N@tedog

Hands-On with the HTC Touch Diamond (Verdict: Slightly Sluggish, But Has Nice UI Touches)

digidandy — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:29:37 EDT

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.

digidandy