HTC Diamond

Today I had the chance to play with HTC's Diamond phone for the first time.  It is the best HTC device I have seen.  It has a touch-screen and therefore the obvious comparison is the iPhone.  But that would be too superficial.  There is no multi-touch, no eco-system app store, and no deep level of integration between hardware, operating system and applications.  The latter means that the usual inconsistencies in user interface (fonts type and sizes, colour schemes, lack of shared behaviours between applications and hardware etc.) for Windows Mobile devices remain.  It is no iPhone.

However it is a very nice mobile phone, and the touch interface once practised is very usable.  It has some very nice hardware features (the touch wheel, accelerometers, etc.) but these are not exploited by all the applications which it offers.  It is slim, not too heavy and a nice form factor.  The screen size for such a small device is very good, and the resolution is excellent... video looks great on it.  HTC have done well with this device, and it is unlikely that such a phone would have come to market (along with all the other touch-screen phones) as soon as this had Apple not launched the iPhone.  We need more such innovation leaders so that very good phones like this are in the market for consumers to choose from.