One of the main reasons we created the Windows Mobile Connection is to provide a way for you to communicate your experiences and opinions directly to the Windows Mobile product development, customer support, and marketing teams. This thread is your opportunity to provide feedback on a new Windows Mobile device.

This month, the device is the HTC Touch Diamond. What do you think of it? Hardware? Software? Any carrier-specific issues? Thanks for taking the time to let us know your thoughts!

 I've spent the last week creating an SOE for the diamon, and previous to that I'd used it for a while. 

Not too good in my opinion, form factor is great, its a joy to hold and the size and weight are perfect. 

Turning off touch-flo 3d is the first thing you will need to do when you get the device.  completely unusable with any sort of content loaded onto the device.  device takes a long time to boot and get to a point where its usable.  

Performance was the biggest downfall here.   and also why they decided to put in a 900mAh battery is beyond me.  that will never be good enough for any of the devices coming out now.  using this device with system center device managent server,  with 3g connected in through an IPSEC vpn, you struggle to get half a day battery life. 

 Touch Pro is the way to go.  basically a beefed up version. with a keyboard. 

Edit:  another thing that always annoys me is the carrier firmware.  why must they abuse the devices so?  There should always be a non-branded option when you are buying a phone.  spending hours removing all the carrier crud to get back to a nice Windows mobile deviceis something that I'm willing to do, but the average user tends to get turned away by all of the carrier's "cool" customisations. 

I really liked the Diamond after getting the updated ROM on there with faster TouchFLO 3D.  It's really gorgeous in terms of graphics and form factor.  Having a touch-screen only interface is definitely slower to use than a hardware-key interface like on the Treo 800w or Treo Pro.  Things I miss from the TyTN II (Kaiser): Tilt up screen, two handed keyboard with full usability (no need to touch the screen), one-handed thumbwheel navigation usability.  Things I don't miss:  weight and thickness.  The Diamond is smaller and more powerful than anything else!

Other awesome things about the Diamond are the little things like:
Flip the device over on a table to silence an incoming call.
Remove stylus to turn on.
Remove stylus to switch between custom defined software input panels (additional software required).  I LOVE having mine show the FITALY keyboard when stylus is removed, or a finger friendly Compact QWERTY keyboard when the stylus is docked.

davidc:

 I've spent the last week creating an SOE for the diamon, and previous to that I'd used it for a while. 

Not too good in my opinion, form factor is great, its a joy to hold and the size and weight are perfect. 

 I agree with that, the form factor is lovely. I don't care for the pointy corners though.

davidc:

Turning off touch-flo 3d is the first thing you will need to do when you get the device.  completely unusable with any sort of content loaded onto the device.  device takes a long time to boot and get to a point where its usable.  

Performance was the biggest downfall here.   and also why they decided to put in a 900mAh battery is beyond me.  that will never be good enough for any of the devices coming out now.  using this device with system center device managent server,  with 3g connected in through an IPSEC vpn, you struggle to get half a day battery life. 

This is ROM dependant. Several of the early ROMs suffered from speed issues (especially the Orange shipped ROM, it was terrible) but the newer ROMs are sweet. Mine goes like greased lightning.

davidc:

 

 Touch Pro is the way to go.  basically a beefed up version. with a keyboard. 

I disagree, I've just sold mine. I think it's a brick. The keyboard nearly doubles the volume of the device, and it's not that good a keyboard.

davidc:

Edit:  another thing that always annoys me is the carrier firmware.  why must they abuse the devices so?  There should always be a non-branded option when you are buying a phone.  spending hours removing all the carrier crud to get back to a nice Windows mobile deviceis something that I'm willing to do, but the average user tends to get turned away by all of the carrier's "cool" customisations. 

 That's easier too. Hard reset your device, then when it says "Installing software" hit the soft reset button. Voila one virgin-ish Diamond.

Oh, I nearly forgot. There is another option. You can buy a HTC branded device. There is no carrier crud on there then. In the UK all of the big operators now offer excellent SIM only packages. It means you buy your device up front rather than over 18 months, but in reality it doesn't cost you any more.

Dave Parker MVP:

This is ROM dependant. Several of the early ROMs suffered from speed issues (especially the Orange shipped ROM, it was terrible) but the newer ROMs are sweet. Mine goes like greased lightning.

 

I've tried every rom i can get my hands on, and while there was a big improvement from the first rom.  its still unusable.

Dave Parker MVP:

 That's easier too. Hard reset your device, then when it says "Installing software" hit the soft reset button. Voila one virgin-ish Diamond.

While this is good and easy to do. Its not something we recomend to our customers, for support issues. We've seen bad corruptions where they havent done the soft reset during the "...in 3 seconds"  but just after, when the cabs have already started installing.  All  sorts of exception errors on the next boot. 

Not to mention that this doesnt work on Standard edition devices (Most that I've tried)

Dave Parker MVP:

Oh, I nearly forgot. There is another option. You can buy a HTC branded device. There is no carrier crud on there then. In the UK all of the big operators now offer excellent SIM only packages. It means you buy your device up front rather than over 18 months, but in reality it doesn't cost you any more.

Doesnt work when a carrier gets exclusivity on a device.  It does if you want to get one for testing, but when you go to source several hundred devices for a customer, and a carrier has rights on it. It will be branded. 

Surely if you're looking at that amount of devices you want to customisig your own ROMs?

 In an ideal world yes. But we would void the customers warranty with the carrier by flashing a custom ROM.  

We'd also have to support it from then on.  At the moment I write applications to strip these things out when they get deployed to the users, and change settings etc.   Its just a pain to do.

If I was buying several hundred devices I'd be looking at getting ROM customisation or going somewhere else.

 Maybe its different in australia,  but the way it typically works is that you will have a customer who will use a select carrier. they will need to choose from devices that are available to them, and run with those.  Most of the larger companies have a carrier presence inside the company, usually a team from the carrier working with them.  Do go and buy devices from soemone else wouldn't be an option because of that relationship. 

I can see what you mean about custom ROMS and I'd been trying to go down that path,  but it never works out.