First Impressions: HTC's Touch Diamond

I got a chance to play with HTC's upcoming "Touch Diamond" smartphone in London on Tuesday and I think it'll fare pretty well. There are a few features about the device that haven't quite come across in preliminary reports. Here are some of them:

1. It's a lot smaller than it looks

The Touch Diamond will undoubtedly get compared to the iPhone time and time again. That's fine, as the two devices share more than a few similarities. One "big" difference, though, is that the Touch Diamond is a lot smaller than it looks. It's about the size of a deck of cards, but half the thickness. Impressive, since it manages to squeeze a 640x480 screen into such a small body.

2. HTC hasn't exposed a lot of the UI features yet

There are certain features of the Touch Diamond that HTC hasn't really highlighted yet. For instance, if you get an incoming call that you don't want to answer, you can set the phone face down on your desk to silence the ringer. And if you want to jot something down mid-conversation, pulling the stylus out of the bottom of the phone will automatically open up the note-taking application. The circular touchpad also has various LED configurations that will flash in different combinations to alert you to missed calls, new e-mails, new text messages, and so forth. Basically, there will be a bunch of intuitive features that users will discover and say, "Ah! Very cool."

3. Windows Mobile is pretty much an afterthought

HTC's done a wonderful job of hiding the Windows Mobile OS on the Touch Diamond. If it wasn't for the tiny Windows logo start button in the upper left hand corner and the familiar Windows Mobile connection icons in the upper right hand corner, most people wouldn't likely notice that the Touch Diamond is a Windows Mobile device. HTC made this device for consumers and the easy-to-use OS shines; just about every setting, menu, and application has been "HTC-ified" with big icons and animations.

All in all, I think the Touch Diamond will find its way into a lot of people's hands. It looks pretty good on paper but I think the preliminary information doesn't quite do the device justice. Is it THE iPhone killer? Who knows? Probably not. The Touch Diamond will certainly make a nice phone, though.

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