While the official announcement wasn't supposed to cross the wires till next week, The Wall Street Journal went early with its story (please don't get me started on this) and published a review of the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint.
Yes, that's right. The Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone is officially part of the Sprint family; not that it was a complete surprise. The HTC Touch Diamond, as well as the HTC Touch Pro (no announcement on this model yet), were long rumored for a CDMA carrier months before Wednesday's early coming-out party. So now that the floodgates are open, here is what we know.
Word's out on the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint.
(Credit: Sprint)There are a number of differences between the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond and the unlocked version we reviewed in late June. First, it sports a purple/burgundy backplate to add more flash to an already sexy phone. The smartphone is also a smidge thicker and heavier at 4 inches tall by 2 inches wide by 0.6 inch deep and 4.1 ounces, but keeps the same 2.8-inch, 262,000-color TFT touch screen.
Of course, one of the highlights of the HTC Touch Diamond is the TouchFLO 3D interface, which provides a toolbar along the bottom of the screen where you can move left to right with the swipe of your finger to launch applications. Sprint's version is optimized so that you can access things like live TV, weather, e-mail, photos, contacts, and more.
In addition to the toolbar, there are several programs, such as e-mail, the camera, and music, where you can go flip through your files and messages by swiping your thumb/finger up or down the screen with a cool animated 3D effect.
Moving on to the features, the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition, but rather than being content with the standard Microsoft Office Mobile Suite, the smartphone also ships with Dataviz's Documents to Go Suite and the Opera Web browser. We're sure many will be pleased with inclusion of these applications, which are arguably more robust than the former. Wireless options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (with A2DP support), EV-DO Rev. A, and GPS with support for Sprint Navigation.
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HTC Touch Diamond
(Credit: HTC)As expected, HTC officially took the wraps off the HTC Touch Diamond at a press conference in London Tuesday and great googly moogly, does this thing look hot! Not only does it look sexy from the outside with its sleek, black casing, but the Touch Diamond also features a revamped TouchFlo 3D interface that gives you a more animated and easier way to access your contacts, messages, and other content. You can do all this via the Diamond's gorgeous 2.8-inch, 680x480 VGA (yes, that's right, VGA) touch screen; plus, there's a new touch-sensitive control below the display to help you out.
The Touch Diamond is a lot more than just looks, though. The quad-band smartphone runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and has integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, and HSDPA support. HTC also noted that it will ship the Touch Diamond with a customized mobile Web browser that provides an optimized view of pages and lets you zoom and pan sites with one hand. In addition, the page orientation will automatically go from portrait to landscape mode when you turn the device sideways (hmm, sounds familiar. *cough, iPhone, cough, cough*) Other goodies include a 3.2-megapixel camera, 4GB internal storage, 256MB flash memory, and 192MB RAM.
The HTC Touch Diamond will start shipping in European markets this June, and then later in the quarter for Asia and the Middle East. As for us, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that we're actually getting our own version but unfortunately, we, as well as Latin American markets, will have to wait till the second half of 2008. Now, while the Touch Diamond certainly looks like a gem (sorry, had to do it), we're hoping it's more than just flash. And we couldn't help but be reminded of a similar-looking smartphone from Velocity Mobile. Mmm hmm, things just got interesting. Check out CNET UK's hands-on examination and our photo gallery of the HTC Touch Diamond.
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