Over at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,
HTC has at
least a couple of new entries for us to consider. The original HTC Touch
Diamond and HTC Touch Pro are remarkably attractive and sleek handsets, so it
only makes sense that their successors take this sleekness to a whole new level.
The second generation HTC Touch Diamond (which we know as the Diamond2)
gets a screen upgrade, from 2.8in to 3.2in, with an accompanying resolution
boost from VGA (480x640) to WVGA (480x800). The lauded TouchFlo 3D alternative
interface now reaches a bit deeper into Windows Mobile 6.1, making a few more
functions touch-friendly, but stopping short of a total overhaul. The most
interesting new interface feature is the "Single Contact View", which
consolidates your complete history of communication (texts, calls, emails) for a
given contact into a single screen. A SD card expansion slot replaces the old
model's fixed internal memory, which results in greater flexibility but severely
diminished memory size on delivery (gone is the 4GB internal memory, replaced
with the wimpy 512MB ROM) and a new 5-megapixel autofocus camera.
The new HTC Touch Pro2 is treated to most of the same upgrades. Its screen
stretches to a full 3.6 inches, which is just .2 inches smaller than the
monstrous TouchHD. It gets a louder speakerphone system and less-pixely camera
than the Diamond2, but retains the larger battery and slide-out QWERTY keyboard
that originally distinguished its dad from the Diamond. Battery life is
apparently boosted by 50% on the Diamond2 and "improved" on the Pro2, a change
which is more than welcome, as this is one of the areas where the original
Diamond/Pro fell down. Other, less immediately interesting new features include
"HTC Push Internet", which is essentially pre-loads parts of your favorite
webpages, and the inauspiciously-named "Straight Talk", which allows for easy
transitions between text or email communications and regular or group phone
calls, letting you immediately initiate a conference call with, say, the
recipients of an email thread.
A few things don't sit will here-mainly the lack of internal memory and lost
touchwheel-but anyone who has used the TouchHD knows that the enhanced
resolution is a welcome change. And not to repeat an all-too-obvious grievance,
but HTC fans have long said that the Diamond and Pro should have been the
company's Android handsets from the get-go, so it's hard to avoid being slightly
disappointed by Windows Mobile 6.1, again. Look for European and Asian launches
to come in early Q2 with the rest of the world following sometime in the second
half of the year.