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Great looks with sleek, professional touch
Following on from its well-received predecessor Touch Diamond, the Diamond2 has big shoes to fill. The Diamond2 is such an eye candy that we can be sure it will suit and raise the image and credibility of any corporate professionals. One look at the phone and you know it is not a loser. The somewhat plastic-looking, old-fashioned angular diamond design is replaced by sleek metallic case with clean, classy matt black on the back.
Touchscreen display is now larger at 3.2", which means navigating with your fingers is much easier and more precise. The stylus is also neatly tucked away at the bottom of the phone, which is 13.7mm thin - unfortunately more than 1mm thicker than the iPhone 3G.
Small, power-packed gadget
Despite being smaller, sleeker, thinner than the Touch Diamond, the Diamond2 is power-packed with features in its small frame. The large 3.2" touchscreen is incredibly sharp. With a resolution of 400 X 800 pixels, the display is fantastically bright, with vivid colours and an excellent level of clarity and sharpness - almost like a tv screen. It is a screen which I feel is the most impressive screen of all phones in the market now. I really could not stop looking into it...
Diamond2 also spot a 5.0 Megapixel camera, making it the perfect substitute for a full-fledged camera if you forgot one on the way out of the house. What's more important, is that it has autofocus capability! Excellent for shaky hands like mine. Zooming is also a breeze, with the Zoom bar located right at the bottom of the screen. With an expandable memory capability, supporting up to 16GB microSD memory cards, you practically need not worry about data storage space.
Though HTC claims that the Diamond2 battery life is two times longer than its predecessor, I have my reservations on that. With me working the phone on a couple of 4-5mins phone calls, constant sms-es, some photo-taking, half an hour of surfing, and occasional playing around with the other applications in the phone, the phone barely last me for a day after a full charge in the morning.
Surfing experience was also not optimal - webpages look a while to load, my YouTube videos took almost forever to stream. And I was actually taken aback that at any one time, only two browsers are allowed open.
A ‘People-centric' phone
What impresses me is the intuitive and easy to navigate layout, which are all governed by what HTC dubs as "people-centric communication" ideology. Under People tab, all communications - phone calls, sms-es, emails - are all grouped together under the name of the same person. This saves me the effort of having to exit applications to track my conversation and where I left off with the particular individual.
HTC's TouchFLO 3D navigation software is the mastermind behind the Diamond2 quick and intuitive navigation and interface. Large icons line up on the screen, which made selection easy and possible, at a glance. Important applications such as calendar and call logs are displayed at the Home screen, which I can easily access and navigate through using one hand. Opening and exiting an application is almost immediate, even though I had 3-4 applications operating at the same time. Flicking through photo albums, surfing websites are also less painstaking now with this updated version of TouchFLO 3D.
However, if you were to ask me if the touch is better or if it is as responsive as the iPhone 3G, sorry, HTC folks, I will have to give it a thumbs down. I seriously did not have it easy scrolling, tapping, flipping, swiping on the screen when using the phone across the applications. It was as if I needed to apply huge pressure with my finger, on the glossy screen, before my wish will be granted. And in my anxiousness to make my command work, I often accidentally tap on other selections... it was frustrating. I was certainly grateful after I switched back to my iPhone 3G after returning the review unit of the Diamond2 for this reason.
The verdict: To get or not to get? To Windows mobile users, yes. This phone is certainly a winner and the crème of the crop amongst its competitors. To iPhone users, hang on and wait for the much awaited iPhone software update in summer this year.
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