Photo courtesy HTC The HTC Touch Diamond is an iPhone-like cellphone offering very sleek design and touch-screen access. image:39851:2::0

You might not know HTC by its name, but you've likely used the company's products; HTC has made cellphones and PDAs for other companies for years. More recently it's been flying under its own brand name and its new Touch Diamond looks stunning.

Digital Journal -- Handset maker HTC Corp. is ushering in a new version of its Touch mobile phone called the Touch Diamond and it certainly looks like it could be a girl's best friend (or guys who don't mind the phone's name). It's also a very serious and worthy competitor to Apple's popular iPhone.

HTC's haughty press release says the phone delivers "unmistakeable style" and "meticulous craftmanship" (seriously, who writes these?), but when you can get your head around the hoity-toity verbiage you will likely find the phone can actually back up its lofty claims.

When DigitalJournal.com first saw the original HTC Touch, we were quite impressed (see previous video review here). Sure, the phone had some noticeable design curiosities but overall we were confident enough to call it the only serious competition for Apple's popular iPhone.

The HTC Touch Diamond looks like it's been handed the torch from its predecessor and its features and design certainly shimmer. The Touch Diamond is small, it's a 3G phone, it uses a 3D touch interface called "TouchFLO 3D" and it's easy to use.

Photo courtesy HTC The HTC Touch Diamond is an iPhone-like cellphone offering very sleek design and touch-screen access. image:39845:5::0

How the Touch Gets Its Name

Our favourite part about using the original Touch was the fact everything can be accessed with simple swipes of your finger. Rather than trying to use a button to click left, left, up, up , up to get to a menu you can simply swipe your finger up on a screen and the menu flies into your view. You can then swipe left and right to move through menus with a cool animation. The same works with photos; you can take pics using the phone's camera and then swipe left and right to shuffle through them on the phone's large screen.

The HTC Touch Diamond is promising to be even better with its TouchFLO 3D interface that provides animated access to people, messaging, email, photos, music, weather and more. In addition, HTC is introducing a new innovative touch-sensitive control for interacting with Touch Diamond.

Mobile Web Browsing

HTC is being quite aggressive with its marketing, going right after the most prized feature of the Apple iPhone: Internet browsing.

Browsing the Web on a cellphone might not be the norm quite yet, but the iPhone certainly has propelled the industry forward and has been credited with providing a truly useful and usable Web browser on a phone.

HTC is claiming the same: “The HTC Touch Diamond will make browsing the Web and using Web-enabled applications just as practical and easy to use as making calls," said Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corp.

The Touch Diamond lets users zoom and pan websites with one hand and the content gets specially sized to fit the display. If you turn the phone sideways, the screen automatically rotates to view the web page in landscape view.

The Touch Diamond also includes a special HTC-branded YouTube application for watching online vids on your phone. Users can also view Google Maps on the phone.

This phone sounds so much like the iPhone, I think HTC should have just launched it with the name "i". The company says it will be available to customers across all major European carriers in June; later this quarter in Asia and the Middle East; and in North America and Latin America it will be available in the second half of 2008. No pricing info available yet.

So if you're still outside of the iPhone market or you're looking for a handheld that can offer similar features you might want to consider the Touch. Don't believe the company's fluffy "unrivalled" claims, and I highly doubt it's an iPhone-killer, but the phone is pretty cool if you get a chance to play with one.

Photo courtesy HTC The HTC Touch Diamond is an iPhone-like cellphone offering very sleek design and touch-screen access. image:39847:4::0

HTC Touch Diamond Key Specifications:

* Size: 102 x 51 x 11.33mm
* Weight: 110 g
* Connectivity: WCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA
* Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
* Display: 2.8-inch VGA touch screen
* Camera: 3.2MP, with video calling
* Internal memory: 4 GB Internal Storage, 256 MB flash, 192 MB RAM,
* Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
* Wireless: WiFi 802.11b/g
* GPS: GPS/AGPS
* Interface: HTC ExtUSBTM (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
* Battery: 900 mAh
* Talk time: GSM: up to 4 hours
* Standby time: GSM: up to 300 hours/100 hours with push email
* Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM 7201ATM 528MHz