HTC Touch Diamond

Key features :

• 2.8" 65K-color VGA display

• TouchFLO 3D Home screen and gesture controls

• 4 GB of internal storage

• Wi-Fi

• Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz CPU and 192 MB DDR SDRAM

• Dedicated graphics chip (64MB RAM reserved for graphics)

• HSDPA 7.2Mbps

• Built-in GPS receiver

• Standout design

• Compact and lightweight

• Stereo FM radio with RDS

• 3.15 MP auto focus camera

• Active magnetic stylus

• Touch-sensitive scroll wheel

• MS Office Mobile document editor

• Opera 9.5 web browser

• Standard miniUSB slot and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP

• Comes with the amusing Teeter game

• YouTube client

• Excellent video playback performance

Main disadvantages :

• Poor battery life
• Fingerprint nightmare
• Average sunlight legibility
• No memory card slot
• Questionable build quality
• Tri-band GSM support only
• No TV out port
• No standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Back panel design has negative impact on usability and camera image quality
• Back panel finish started to wear off in a few weeks of usage
• Limited scroll wheel usage

Final words :

Well, even the best diamond specimens have imperfections, whether they are visible to the naked eye or less so. Yet, last time we checked they were still quite worth it. The situation is a bit similar with HTC's own precious stone.

The Touch Diamond has revolutionary size and design, topped with unsurpassed touch functionality among Windows Mobile devices. The VGA display, the rich communications package and the excellent software bundle make the Touch Diamond a real gem. The unique magnetic stylus and the generous 4GB of built-in storage do add to the allure of this compact fella.

But we already warned you the Diamond we're dealing with is not perfect. We expected better sunlight legibility of the VGA display. The edges of the impractical back panel started to wear off in two weeks or so. And finally, the lack of a memory card simply takes the allure away. We would have gladly traded the 4 gigs worth of storage for a simple hot-swappable microSD card slot.

A 3.5 mm audio jack would have also been welcome, as the supplied stereo headset simply doesn't cut it for music on-the-go. The camera also suffers from the back panel design, which ruins sharpness, contrast and resolution.

As you see, in diamond terms this handset is a delicate balance of high carat and imperfections. The Touch Diamond is a crossover product that will most probably convert new believers to Windows Mobile, but would probably fail to raise itself in the demanding eyes of hard-core PocketPC devotees. Most of them will probably go for the HTC Touch Pro, for its hardware five-row QWERTY keyboard, TV-out port, beefier battery and, of course, a microSD card slot.

To wrap up, HTC Touch Diamond is far from the uber device but it managed to win our hearts with its slick exterior and sufficient skill. There must be enough people out there to believe diamonds are forever and the HTC Touch Diamond delivers pretty much all there is to deliver.