All I wanted was to not buy one phone within one year of my last one. And once again.. just a few months shy of my Touch Diamond's one year anniversary. I lost it...
Presenting the HTC Touch Diamond 2. Now it REALLY looks like it's an iPhone wannabe! First of all there's no more D-Pad on the device, while on the Diamond the D-Pad was pretty much useless it was still nice to have around when you ran into programs that weren't expecting the D-Pad to not be present. While the device is slightly bigger than the old Diamond it now comes equipped with a 800x480 screen. The other interesting thing is that the actual physical dimensions of the screen isn't that much bigger than the old Diamond so that means it was removed just to make it look like a bloody iPhone!
And here's the closeup of the controls (Which coincidentally I had to reshoot 5 times cause I kept getting my finger prints on the brushed metal surface) Just a pretty standard set of answer, Windows button, back button, and hangup button. It's nice of HTC to mark the hangup button as the home button since that's essentially what the hangup button does in Windows Mobile devices, go back to the home screen. And the bottom of the device you can see the always screamed about HTC Ext USB port, which means that again you need an adapter to plug your headphone in cause there's no standard headphone jack on the phone. Personally I don't care cause I don't listen to music that much and the more important thing to me is that a standard Mini USB connector fits.
Sitting above the buttons is a touch sensitive ZOOM BAR
In compatible apps this allows sliding your fingers along the bar allows you to zoom in and out in the applications, such as Opera.. the Album viewer, the RSS viewer, etc. etc.
On the top of the phone (darn fingerprints on the rim..)
You have the power button on the tip, the 5 Mega Pixel auto focus camera, and the slit on the side is where the speaker is. The speaker is louder than the Diamond's but it still wouldn't past the chinese dinner test. (Is there a phone that can?) Also for those of you who has seen the Diamond before, note that the Diamond 2 doesn't have the Diamond motif on the back anymore, also flat, glossy piece of shiny plastic? Fingerprint magnet nightmare!
The original Diamond had 4GB of internal storage and about 192MB of main storage memory. Which would have been ok had Opera been configured to use the external storage for Cache, and also HTC's own programs didn't simply dump large thumbnails in the main memory.
This is fixed in the Diamond2 with a healthy 300MB of main storage memory and a Micro SD HD slot which hides behind the back cover.
Some would complain that the card slot should be out in the open, but I guess HTC just wanted to go for the aesthetics and not leave a card slot and rubber card slot cover on the outside of the device. It could have been worse, they could have put it BEHIND the battery. At least currently you can just slide out the card without turning the phone off. Speaking of battery, the Diamond 2 has a 1100mAh battery, slightly better than the 900mAh of the Diamond 1, and I can't comment on the battery life yet. The stylus of the Diamond 2 is no longer magnetic, so there's no satisfying swish as you put the stylus into the silo. I miss the little trick, but as a person who knows that even the simple magnetic clasps of a PDA case can wipe a hotel room access key I can understand the reasoning behind the decision. But.. taking out the stylus still wakes the D2 out of standby.
And that's the physical overview of the D2, I'm too lazy to capture screens for the software overview, so I most likely will just record my comments on video. But I'll just leave it at this. HTC has done an IMPRESSIVE job of beautifying the basic WM6.1 interface and making the UI simply beautiful! Also for the first time that I know of, the Chinese language support is IN THE ROM. No extra installation required. Oh.. you don't get handwriting recognition for the one they included though.
For those who are asking "Should I get the Diamond 2?" If you already have a Diamond 1, probably not unless you really feel like getting a device with a higher screen resolution. If you are looking for a new feature phone, my usual reservations to recommending WM phones to people is still there (My main worry is that during purchase, the shops installs so much 'free' software and the device starts being unstable) I always felt that the choice of getting a WM phone must be made by the users themselves because they need to be aware that with the power and capability of the phone, there's a lot of things that one person can like about the phone while another hates it to hell. But I must say with the Diamond 2, I would be a little inclined to nudge someone to get it if they ask about recommendations.