HTC Touch Diamond review

Phone features on the HTC Touch Diamond include a speakerphone, voice dialing and commands, and text and multimedia messaging. The address book is only limited by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) and you can store up to 12 numbers for a single entry, as well as home and work addresses, e-mail, IM screen name, birthday, spouse's name, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group, or one of 40 polyphonic ringtones. The smartphone also has Bluetooth 2.0 that supports mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets, hands-free kits, file sharing, dial-up networking, and more.

As we noted earlier, we reviewed the Europe/Asia version of the smartphone, so it's tri-band (GSM 900/1800/1900) rather than quad-band. As such, AT&T coverage will be spotty in some places, and no surprise, it doesn't support our U.S. 3G bands. Surfing the Web on EDGE speeds isn't our idea of fun but fortunately, the Touch Diamond is also equipped with Wi-Fi. We should note that the device also ships with the Opera Web browser, in addition to the standard Internet Explorer Mobile. The smartphone offers Adobe Flash Lite 2, but not the latest Flash Lite 2, which offers FLV support (read: YouTube videos). To make up for this oversight, there is a preloaded YouTube app on the Touch Diamond that allows you to watch said videos. The final wireless radio on the Touch Diamond is GPS for real-time tracking and turn-by-turn directions (with the addition of a location-based service or navigation software). With the assisted GPS, the handheld can also use cellular towers and nearby Wi-Fi hot spots to more quickly find your location.

On back of the Touch Diamond, you'll find the 3.2 megapixel camera, which is nicely incorporated into the prism design.

The HTC Touch Diamond is equipped with a 3.2-megapixel camera with up to 4x zoom and videorecording capabilities. There are six capture modes (photo, video, panorama, MMS video, contacts picture, and picture theme). For still photos, you have a choice of five resolutions and four quality settings in addition to white balance and brightness controls. Other tools at your disposal include a photo counter, a self timer, flicker adjustment, and various effects. In video mode, you get four resolutions as well as white balance, brightness, and effects.

We were slightly disappointed by the picture quality, as colors looked washed out. There's also a bit of shutter lag.

Picture quality was OK. For the most part, objects had clear definition, but there was a bit of shutter lag, so we found you had to have a really steady hand (and patience) to get a clear shot. Also, colors weren't very bright or rich. Recorded video clips looked decent, but again, there was some delay between the time we pressed the capture button to the time the camera actually started/stopped recording.

You can also enjoy your personal library of music and video with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. As always, there's support for AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4, WMV files, and more. Plus, you can check out shows recorded on your Windows Media Center PC or stream your home's TV programming right to your device with a Slingbox and SlingPlayer Mobile. The HTC Touch Diamond also throws in a couple of multimedia extras, including an FM radio, which you must use with the included headset, an audio booster, a streaming media app, and a utility called MP3 Trimmer that allows you to cut and trim MP3 files and make them into ringtones.

Performance
We tested the tri-band (GSM 900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) HTC Touch Diamond in San Francisco using AT&T service, and call quality was subpar. On our end, there was a bit of a background hiss, but not so bad that we couldn't hear our callers. Volume was good and voices sounded clear; we also didn't have any problems using an airline's voice-automated response system. Unfortunately, our callers had nothing good to report. One friend said we sounded "horrible," as our voice was drowned out by a crackling noise, and activating the speakerphone didn't improve matters, as it only added an echo to the mix. With the Getting Started menu, the Touch Diamond automatically found and connected to both the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.

Despite being powered by a 528MHz Qualcomm processor, the HTC Touch Diamond felt very sluggish. There was often a lag when just switching between menus and launching applications, and there were a couple of occasions where the delay was long enough to make us think the system froze. In all, we found using the Touch Diamond was a frustrating experience because of the slow performance. Browsing the Web on GPRS/EDGE speeds was painfully slow, so we obviously used a Wi-Fi connection when possible. Multimedia performance was mixed. Music playback through the phone's speakers sounded weak and tinny. Watching video clips was tolerable in short spurts, and audio and images were always synchronized.

The HTC Touch Diamond's 900mAh lithium ion battery has a rated talk time of 5.5 hours and up to 11.8 days of standby time. The Touch Diamond beat the rated talk time by half an hour in our battery drain tests, but we noticed in general use that the cell drains pretty quickly. By the end of the day, the battery level is usually at one and we have to recharge.