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By John Chan
May 07, 2008

If you take a heavy wrench, hit it repeatedly against the weak joints of a rusty sewerage pipe, you'll still have fewer leaks than what was revealed about the Touch Diamond before its official launch. To HTC's credit, the official release was still pretty exciting because of the improvements to TouchFLO and some surprising specifications.

Upside

HTC has its own YouTube channel which showcases what the new TouchFLO 3D can do. Videos there show a very smooth 3D interface which emulates flipping through paper whether you are selecting a photo contact to call or browsing through photos. This looks very graphically intensive and according to the HTC Web site, it's powered by a 3D graphics processor. That would rule out any upgrade to this version on the Touch Dual and Touch Cruise as those devices do not have their 3D acceleration enabled.

Equally impressive are its specifications. It's the first device from the manufacturer to use a new Qualcomm MSM7201A clocked at 528MHz. What's more, it has 192MB of RAM, 64MB more than the norm, which means more memory to play around with when running multiple applications.

Even though it's very compact with dimensions of 102 x 51 x 11.3mm, the Diamond comes with a VGA display. Making full use of this feature are custom apps like a dedicated YouTube program and also a modified Opera browser which allows you to surf Web pages as they appear on a desktop browser.

Like the last Touch device, the Cruise, the Diamond comes with a full suite of connectivity features including Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. What's more, aside from HSDPA, it is capable of HSUPA, useful for those who need to upload data like images and documents over the cellular network.

Downside

Going through the press release and HTC Web site, there is no mention of an expansion card slot in the Touch Diamond. It may already have 4GB of internal storage, but being able to swap in your own expansion cards is something many users appreciate. We have contacted HTC to confirm if there really is no expansion slot and are awaiting a reply. (Update: It's official, there is no memory expansion slot in the Diamond. You have to live with the built-in 4GB internal storage)

The battery used in this handheld is a 900mAh one. This seems quite small for a PDA-phone, especially considering it has so many wireless radios. It could be that the HTC engineers have made it so well that its components sip power. If not, we can be looking at daily battery charges.

Outlook

On paper, there's a lot to like about the HTC Touch Diamond. While we don't have a price yet, it will be available in Asia before June is up. It's important to note that rumors indicate the 3G iPhone will be arriving then, too. Even if that turns out to be true, this device seems well positioned to challenge the mighty Apple. More so, at least, than the original HTC Touch which was announced at almost the same time as the current iPhone.

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