Posts Tagged ‘HTC’

Review: HTC Touch Diamond

It’s hard not to look at HTC’s new flagship smartphone, the Touch Diamond, through iPhone-tinted glasses. Featuring a touch screen interface that’s been designed, on the surface at least, to be operated using a finger rather than a stylus, like Cupertino’s own crown jewel, the Touch Diamond is marketed as a device that makes accessing the Web on the go just as easy as making a phone call. It’s also HTC’s latest attempt to put a consumer face on the business oriented Windows Mobile operating system. No mean feat in itself.

Read on to find out if the HTC Touch Diamond truly sparkles or if it’s just an expensive piece of “bling” (Ed. enough puns already).

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HTC on schedule to deliver Android-powered phone in 4Q

Overheard at a Verizon wireless store today:

Kid: “This phone sucks.”

Dad: “I know. But there’s not much I can do about it.”

Kid: “Why?”

Dad: “Your contract isn’t up until March and I don’t want to pay $300 for a new one.”

Kid: “Your phone is eligible for an upgrade. Let me use yours.”

Dad: “I don’t want to buy any new phone right now. There’s going to be a lot of phones coming out in the next six months and I want to see them first. All the phones here are lame duck technology.”

Kid: “Oh. Well, this phone still sucks.”

At least some relief is on the horizon for dad. High Tech Computer (HTC), a Taiwan-based maker of Microsoft Windows Mobile cell phones, announced it is on schedule to deliver by 4Q 2008 its first phones based on Google’s open source mobile operating system, Android [via DigiTimes and IntoMobile]. No other details were provided.

HTC has long been rumored to be making their HTC Dream smartphone available on the Android platform later this year, making HTC the first manufacturer to deliver an actual working model and not a prototype with promise.

It is expected that an Android-powered Google phone — along with the introduction in July of the Apple iPhone 3G — will completely shake up the U.S. cell phone/smart phone market with its touch screen and haptic feedback, a full QWERTY keypad (that slides or swivels for easy typing and texting), and Internet access, among other features.

It’s enough for dad to hold off buying a new phone for the kid.

HTC launches first true iPhone competitor just as Apple is about to take its phone to next level

htc touch diamondIt’s about time. Well, sort of.

Taiwanese smart phone manufacturer HTC launched the Touch Diamond today and, as expected, it’s small, sleek, sexy, very iPhone-esque, and promising.

Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S. or Latin America, the Diamond will not be available until the second half of 2008. If you’re in European markets, the phone begins shipping in June, followed by Asia and the Middle East.

As you know, much has been said about the iPhone since its launch last June. Ever since then, any phone released by any manufacturer is compared with the iPhone.

But so far, no one has come close to the iPhone’s design, interface, usability, user experience, and overall satisfaction, although Nokia’s offerings are popular. One “phone” promised to take on the iPhone, but the so-called Gphone, running Google’s mobile operating system Android, hasn’t been released by any manufacturer yet, it isn’t expected until the fourth quarter, and is completely untested in the market.

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