Difference between HTC Touch Diamond and Diamond2

Written on 5/04/2009 03:51:00 PM by poison_ivy

Okay, so I'm seriously considering buying the HTC Touch Diamond2. I know I said that I'm not interested in it considering that the specs is somewhat similar to my Samsung Omnia but curiousity is getting the better of me and I haven't had an HTC device for some time now. Anyways, if I don't like it, I can always sell it off eBay and chalk it up to experience.

However, before buying the HTC Touch Diamond2, I also have to consider its predecessor, the HTC Touch Diamond. I didn't like the first one so why would I like this second one? Let's tackle the major differences between the HTC Touch Diamond and the Diamond 2.

Screen Size

The most noticeable difference of the HTC Touch Diamond from the Touch Diamond2 is its screen size. The former only has a 2.8 inch 65k touchscreen while the latter has a much better screen at 3.2 inches. Basically, both has the same screen technology used although the difference lies in the pixels. I didn't like the smaller screen of the Touch Diamond so the larger screen of the Touch Diamond2 is much more appealing. Also, both devices have a separate graphics chips that's why admittedly, both really excels graphics wise to the Omnia.

Design

As for the design, the Diamond2 is much taller than its predecessor although I don't know why, for the love of God, is it much thicker? They already chopped off the annoying prism pattern on the back so why is it thicker?! It's also much thicker than the Omnia so I don't know whether I would like that. HTC also decided to remove the D-Pad on the Diamond2...Bad idea. Some old applications for windows mobiler requires the D-pad. Also, some of my favorite winmo games also requires a d-pad that's why I get annoyed with the Omnia because the optical d-pad is really slow especially when I'm playing RPG games. Taking away the D-Pad means the HTC Diamond2 has less backwards compatibility with winmo applications.

Memory

Both the HTC Touch Diamond and the Diamond2 sports the same processor speed: 528MHz, and the same RAM capacity: 288MB. The difference lies in the internal storage. The original Touch Diamond doesn't support any external memory though it has a 4GB internal memory. For users who have a lot of music and videos, 4GB is too small. The Touch Diamond2 doesn't have such a large internal memory though it does suppport expandable memory.

Camera

Another major difference between the HTC Touch Diamond and the Diamond 2 is the camera. The former only has a 3 megapixel camera while the latter has 5 megapixels. I don't know if the Diamond2 supports smile detection and face detection like the Omnia but apparently, according to some reviews, the Touch Diamond2 has a pretty good image quality. I would love for someone to compare that with the Omnia.

Improved Interface

Probably the thing I hated most about the Original Touch Diamond is the user interface. It's slow and laggy. However, I've heard reports that the Touch Diamond2 is severely touch optimized that it already compares with other capacitive touchscreen devices on the market (except the iPhone). Also, the Touch Diamond2 has severely hidden the underlying windows interface which I really have to see. The HTC Touch HD is already touch optimized, from what I've gleaned from YouTube vidoes, if they say that the Touch Diamond2 is comparable and not better, then I really do have to check this thing out.

Posted in HTC, Windows Mobile |