PC Pro Slams the HTC Touch Diamond

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/209376/htc-touch-diamond.html' target='_blank'>http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/2093...ch-diamond.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"A frustrating phone in every way. Some excellent touches promise so much - including a great screen and web browser - but in use it's unbearably slow. When weighing your decision whether or not to buy the HTC Touch Diamond, we'd suggest you keep one dominant image in your mind: a set of old-fashioned scales. In the left, we'll put the Bad stuff. And in the right, we'll throw in all the Good. Very little about this product falls in between. Let's start off with the Bad."</em></p><p><img style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/spt/auto/1215784195.usr1.jpg" alt="" /></p><p>What a <em>great</em> example of the media's double standards. They give the Diamond 2/6 stars and heavily criticize the battery life for not lasting through heavy use over a weekend. Their <a href="http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/211809/apple-iphone-3g.html" target="_blank">review of the iPhone 3G</a>, a 5/6 star device, mentions that you'll need to charge the device every other day even with moderate use. So why is one product slammed and one product just barely criticized? It's like everyone is <em>terrified </em>to criticize the iPhone. Ridiculous.</p><p>However, on the speed of the Diamond, which is his primary complaint, I have to agree with him somewhat - even with the latest ROM update from a couple of weeks back, it's still too slow. Sometimes moving from element to element happens reasonably quickly, but there's still a delay where nothing happens at all. That might have been acceptable three years ago, but it's not acceptable today. Too often, it will stall out moving from one thing to the next. The funny thing is that even with that criticism, it's still the best Professional device I've used overall, at least one without a keyboard. On the stability front, even with no third party applications installed, I've had to soft reset it once after about a week of using it, which was a bit disappointing. Since then it's been two weeks without need for a reset, which is pretty good - although I'm spoiled by my T-Mobile Dash; I might have to reboot it once every three months at the worst. <MORE /></p><p>On the looks front, the HTC Touch Diamond does very well. I took it to an <a href="http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/89762/amd-tech-day-morning-sessions.html" target="_blank">AMD event in Austin</a> a couple of weeks ago, and the "wow" factor it had when people looked at it was interesting - everyone loved it, until they started using it and guess what the first thing they said was? "Hmm - it's not very fast, is it?". That's an unfortunate reality about the state of the Touch Diamond right now - I'm really hoping that over the next few months, HTC's software engineers can optimize the Touch Diamond further and eliminate some of those delays.</p><p>Shockingly for any of you who know how I feel about most Apple products, I'm probably going to pick up an iPod Touch (likely a used one) so I can get more hands-on time with Apple's on-screen keyboard - I want to understand the subtleties of their approach vs. HTCs, because I can't seem to get any comfortable degree of accuracy with the Diamond's on-screen keyboard...I make error after error and I'm longing for a physical keyboard again.</p><p>Touch Diamond owners: how's your experience with the device so far? Do you agree with this review and rating of 2/6 stars?</p>

[MattMojo]

It will take quite a bit for me to give up my Samsung I760. This device hardly never has to be rebooted and it is incredibly fast. Everything I do with it is snappy and never hangs on ANYTHING --- not to mention the battery life is crazy long!!

I must agree with the poster that is seems even though the reviews of the Iphone 3G includes more negatives than positives, they all end with "This is the greatest piece of technology in the world!!!" ... blah!! The Iphone is nice but by no means will it ever surpass the sheer configurabilty of WM. Not to mention nobody is pissed about how the latest and greatest somehow cost less than the original??? talk about the good ol' Apple tredmill.

WM has had it's rocky times, but WM6 has fixed all the issues I have ever had with it.



Mojo

[whydidnt]

Shockingly for any of you who know how I feel about most Apple products, I'm probably going to pick up an iPod Touch (likely a used one) so I can get more hands-on time with Apple's on-screen keyboard - I want to understand the subtleties of their approach vs. HTCs, because I can't seem to get any comfortable degree of accuracy with the Diamond's on-screen keyboard...I make error after error and I'm longing for a physical keyboard again.


I haven't tried a Touch Diamond, yet so I can't comment on it. However, I happily own a 32 GB iPod Touch. Apple has done a fantastic job with their error correction technology for the on-screen keyboard. I struggle sometimes with entering technical terms, abbreviations, and web addresses. Entering text for emails or notes works very well, however. Apple does a fantastic job "post-processing" your text and guessing what you meant to type and correcting it on the fly. I would think just by nature of the larger screen the keys are bigger and easier to hit as well. Perhaps the Diamond keyboard has added smart shortcuts, but previous WM devices didn't -- on the Apple iTouch, when I'm entering a web address, the keyboard magically presents me with a slash key and a .com key so I don't have to hit shift, etc. to type those common elements. It is certainly a better experience than I've had with WM on-screen keyboards.

[Ed@Brighthand]

I'm using the Diamond as my primary device right now, and I'm mostly satisfied with it. Obviously I wouldn't describe TouchFLO3D as being unacceptably slow, but it's a tad slower than I like. I'm hoping HTC will keep tweaking it to improve performance; there was a very noticeable jump in responsiveness with the ROM that was introduced a few weeks ago.

And one other thing to keep in mind: any slowness in the Diamond isn't inherent in the device, but in TouchFLO3D. A quick trip to Settings can turn that off and the regular Windows Mobile user interface comes through, and that operates as fast as you'd expect a 528 MHz model to do. You lose some of the coolness, but your work gets done faster.
.

[freddychew]

I have not own a Touch Diamond and I cant comment on this product. But with nightmare and the poor services of HTC staff. I would not dare to trust their future products anymore.

I do own a HTC TyTN II. Many reviews have claims the super set for this model. But it turn out to be a poor and big mistake in trusting them.

2 days after my purchase, It was not functioning properly. Send it back to the local agent and they replace it for me (Battery only). Thinking that will solve the problem. But it's is not the actual defect. It's the phone that is faulty.

Went back again to them and they give me 2 option 1. Leave the set with them for 2 to 3 weeks for replacement of the mother board or they to replace my set with a new one. But I must wait for delivery of the new set.

Waited for more than 2 months and they have forgotten about it. Try to get back to them and they make you a fool to tell you with a different story and ending with you having to bare with their faulty sets. In fact turn a deaf ear on you.

I will never trust this Brand again. Empty promises, very poor and bad after sales services, poor excuse and lack of trust confident to this brand.

Singapore

[bobbert]

And one other thing to keep in mind: any slowness in the Diamond isn't inherent in the device, but in TouchFLO3D. A quick trip to Settings can turn that off and the regular Windows Mobile user interface comes through, and that operates as fast as you'd expect a 528 MHz model to do. You lose some of the coolness, but your work gets done faster.
.That's the best news I've heard in a long time. Thanks for the great tip, Ed!

I want to buy a nicely spec'd PPC phone with VGA or better screen ASAP. But other than the Touch/TouchPro and SE XPERIA X1, there doesn't seem to be anything else coming. Even worse, if you want to go with Sprint, I suspect I probably won't be able to get the XPERIA either. I suppose the next batch of phones will be when WinMo 7 is ready?

So to follow-up, Ed or anyone else with hands-on knowledge... How confident are you that when TouchFLO3D is off that it still doesn't have performance problems? Is it possible that it only helps, but doesn't completely fix the peformance problems?

[Jason Dunn]

Oh yeah, and the other gem is that the one reviewer complains about the lack of an expansion slot on the Diamond, and the other doesn't mention that as a negative on the iPhone. Sure, the iPhone starts at 8 GB and the Diamond has only a 4 GB option, but why isn't it a negative that the iPhone doesn't have a memory card expansion slot? Or a removable battery?

[Fritzly]

I do not have a problem recharging my phone every night so I am not getting in this part of the debate but I have a Diamond and even with the latest ROM is very slow indeed. Also I do not think that you should disable Touch Flo to make it faster; HTC advertise the product with this feature and its impact on performances is something that they should have considered. I also use pocket Informant, a must IMO, and this further decrease performances.
Until HTC fixes issues I will not buy another phone frm them, period.

[whydidnt]

Oh yeah, and the other gem is that the one reviewer complains about the lack of an expansion slot on the Diamond, and the other doesn't mention that as a negative on the iPhone. Sure, the iPhone starts at 8 GB and the Diamond has only a 4 GB option, but why isn't it a negative that the iPhone doesn't have a memory card expansion slot? Or a removable battery?

I think you answered this question yourself. The iPhone natively comes with either twice or 4x as much memory as the Touch. Of course that makes the need for the memory slot less important.

I'm sorry for being negative, but the more we continue to allow MS and HTC to provide "less" than the competition, without calling them out on it, the longer we will get "less". Seriously, we are year removed from the orignal iPhone release, and still don't have a WM phone device that can match the hardware specifications of the iPhone - I'm talking fast processer, 3.5" hi-res screen, small form factor and loads of on-board memory. The upcoming Samsung comes closest, and may deliver on most of the this promise (sans screen resolution). The problem with MicroSD solutions is we still can't buy a card bigger than 8GB.

[bearxor]

While I've not used and don't plan on using the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro, everything mentioned in the article should come as no surprise to anyone who has a grasp of the history of HTC devices. They are consistently slow to do anything, always buggy even after several patches and just plain not very easy to use.

Here's the deal with the contrast in the HTC review and the iPhone reviews Jason.

The iPhone is not perfect. It's absolutely true. It has flaws, just as every phone does. Even through those flaws, however, the USER EXPERIENCE comes off very good. This is something Microsoft is still working on and, quite frankly, something HTC will NEVER get.

HTC lost my business starting with the Wizard/Apache and will never get it back. For all the great tinkering you can do with WM on HTC platforms, they have to provide a great out of the box experience.

HTC lost my business several years ago and it will take a miracle in their software development to win it back. It's not about the hardware anymore.

[eagle63]

Here's the deal with the contrast in the HTC review and the iPhone reviews Jason. The iPhone is not perfect. It's absolutely true. It has flaws, just as every phone does. Even through those flaws, however, the USER EXPERIENCE comes off very good. This is something Microsoft is still working on and, quite frankly, something HTC will NEVER get.

***long quote trimmed by mod JD***

I was about to comment on Jason's criticism of the lack of consistency with reviews like this, and you took the words right out of my mouth. :) It's absolutely true, Apple has proven that user experience matters. The slick and quick interface always gives you a warm fuzzy and leaves you impressed with the device. It makes the negative points much easier to swallow. On the other hand, a device that's sluggish becomes quickly annoying and taints your overall view of it.

Now, you could certainly argue that a professional (?) reviewer should take the emotion out of it and purely review based on objective things, but again - the subjective stuff matters and I think that's why we see "unfair" reviews like this.

As a current HTC Touch owner, I'm fed up with the sluggishness of this device and I'm really disappointed to here that the Diamond is also slow. Despite generally liking WM, I'm starting to wonder if it's time to jump ship - at least until WM7 is out. The lure of Android, iPhone 3G and the hopefully upcoming Palm Gen2 OS is getting too tempting.

[Jason Dunn]

Here's the deal with the contrast in the HTC review and the iPhone reviews Jason. The iPhone is not perfect. It's absolutely true. It has flaws, just as every phone does. Even through those flaws, however, the USER EXPERIENCE comes off very good. This is something Microsoft is still working on and, quite frankly, something HTC will NEVER get.

And you think that's all there is to it? User experience or not, I find it hard to believe that you don't see any difference in the coverage of the iPhone versus other phones on the market - I agree fully that the user experience on the Touch Diamond doesn't match that of the iPhone, but that review was still extremely biased. There's absolutely no way that the Touch Diamond is a 2 out of 6 phone - that's a grossly unfair rating.

[Jason Dunn]

The slick and quick interface always gives you a warm fuzzy and leaves you impressed with the device. It makes the negative points much easier to swallow. On the other hand, a device that's sluggish becomes quickly annoying and taints your overall view of it.

Slick interfaces and warm fuzzies last for the first few days - any reviewer worth his salt looks past that and looks at the deeper issues, like does the device perform well at the tasks it was designed for. I'm not knocking the iPhone, but the Touch Diamond is a much better device than this reviewer makes it out to be.

[Mr. PPC]

I have been using the Diamond for awhile and would easily call it the best WM device I've used, without a keyboard. Is it perfect no, neither is the iPhone or any other device on the market.


For those that will say... Yes, the iPhone may not be perfect, but it is the best phone available.

The iPhone is bigger than the Diamond, which matters to me and many others
The iPhone battery hasn't lasted as long as my Diamond (yes, I have one)
I can edit MS files on the Diamond if necessary, not yet available on iPhone
The screen is better on the Diamond than the iPhone 3G, it is smaller because the phone is smaller.
Security on my WM device is way beyond the iPhone, especially when used with System Centre Mobile Device Manager. For example: Mobile VPN with Dual Factor Authenticated Access (device and user)
I can see as a consumer device the iPhone has a lot of appeal to many people. But for those who use their device for work (Enterprise) and have to manage devices in a work environment the iPhone (all models) just doesn't cut it.

[eagle63]

I have been using the Diamond for awhile and would easily call it the best WM device I've used, without a keyboard. Is it perfect no, neither is the iPhone or any other device on the market.

But is it sluggish? If it's as slow as most WM devices (or worse?) as the reviewer seemed to imply then I don't really care how many great features it has.

[eagle63]

Slick interfaces and warm fuzzies last for the first few days - any reviewer worth his salt looks past that and looks at the deeper issues, like does the device perform well at the tasks it was designed for. I'm not knocking the iPhone, but the Touch Diamond is a much better device than this reviewer makes it out to be.

Jason, I agree that the reviewer needs to look past this, but it seemed as though the sluggishness was so bad that it almost didn't matter what the rest of the device had to offer. (he almost admitted as much too)

So in my mind the question is, "was the slowness as bad as he made it out to be?" Maybe it wasn't - maybe there is some truth to the idea that newer versions/ROM's have improved it. Or, maybe he had an agenda. Who knows. But if his experience was accurate, then I would have shredded it too - there's just no excuse anymore for that kind of sloppy design. (and unfortunately this has become a pattern of behavior from HTC) On the other hand, if you're a reviewer and you're used to reviewing iPhone's, Blackberrys, Treos, etc, then you're probably going to find most WM devices to be slow. So maybe we WM geeks wouldn't notice much, but to everyone else it seems far worse?

Whatever the case, I refuse to believe that WM devices can't be snappy and quick. Palm managed to do a pretty good job on their first try with the 700wx and 750. Why can't HTC figure it out?

[bearxor]

Whatever the case, I refuse to believe that WM devices can't be snappy and quick. Palm managed to do a pretty good job on their first try with the 700wx and 750. Why can't HTC figure it out?

I had a whole paragraph on how HTC basically got owned by Palm on Palm's first WM attempt, even with all the "experience" HTC has. You're absolutely right, this is pattern behavior for HTC. Maybe that's what the reviewer is fed up with.

It's like if Tina just kept going back to Ike and getting bitch slapped over and over again. Eventually you'll just get fed up with it.

The problem with trying to dissect his review is that you want your opinion to be his opinion. It's your opinion that the iPhone sucks and isn't as flexible as the Diamond. That's fine, but that's why it's called an opinion. After all, even a professional review is just an opinion.

Bottom line: If you like being slapped by the Wizard/Apache and then you went back and liked being bitch slapped by the TyTn series, and then you came back again to get knocked out by the Vogue, you're going to LOVE the Touch Diamond/Pro.

[joker]

It's your opinion that the iPhone sucks and isn't as flexible as the Diamond.It's a fact, not an opinion.
And if you deny that fact you just count yourself to the big masses who has absolutely no clue at all what they are talking about.



(Even my 3-years-old Qtek 2020i aka HTC Alpine owns the current iphone, the next iphone and it will surely also own the next couple generations of the iphone overall. "Surely" because we all know how apple works.
Before the Alpine my 4-years-old HTC BlueAngel was more flexible than the iphone.
And I know even older WM devices which were way more flexible than the iphone overall.
You cannot deny that, these are *experienced* facts. If you deny that you never *experienced* mobile devices before the apple ones.)

[bearxor]

Sorry, that sentence should probably read:

"It's your opinion that the iPhone sucks because it isn't as flexible as the Diamond."

You know the internet, sometimes when you type it, it doesn't come out the way you thought in your head.

However, the fact that you think the iPhone sucks does not make it general fact. It's still just your opinion.

[Rallaster]

I don't have the Diamond or the iPhone and don't plan on getting either of them. I have a TyTN and a TyTNII, both branded by At&t, and like others here I won't go back to HTC until they pull their head out of a very dark place and start making pocket PCs that live up to the hype, and actually take full advantage of the hardware they are using.

[geordieboy]

I do not have a problem recharging my phone every night so I am not getting in this part of the debate but I have a Diamond and even with the latest ROM is very slow indeed. Also I do not think that you should disable Touch Flo to make it faster; HTC advertise the product with this feature and its impact on performances is something that they should have considered. I also use pocket Informant, a must IMO, and this further decrease performances.
Until HTC fixes issues I will not buy another phone frm them, period.

I'm looking to buy a Touch this coming week and will also want to use Pocket Informant.When we say 'slow' here, how long does it take to go from, say, the Home screen into PI when you tap on the PI application icon ? (I currently use a Treo 500V and that take about 3-4 seconds....

[Mr. PPC]

But is it sluggish? If it's as slow as most WM devices (or worse?) as the reviewer seemed to imply then I don't really care how many great features it has.

When first shipped the Diamond was slow(ish), since then there have been updates released by HTC. Add to that the XDA developer's community and there have been several versions of improved ROMs available over just the last month that have greatly improved several areas of the Diamond, not just its speed. When saying "improved" I mean making changes to apps, hardware code, UI design etc. This means people can tailor their Diamond, or any WM device, to fit them and how they work/play specifically.

As I said before, no device is perfect. The iPhone is too big for what I want and lacks Enterprise features that are standard on WM devices. The Blackberry has several limitations, one being that my mail goes to a NOC in Canada and is at the mercy of RIM (which has had more donwtime than our Exchange 2007 environment).

[Mr. PPC]

I'm looking to buy a Touch this coming week and will also want to use Pocket Informant.When we say 'slow' here, how long does it take to go from, say, the Home screen into PI when you tap on the PI application icon ? (I currently use a Treo 500V and that take about 3-4 seconds....

Touch or Touch Diamond?

[geordieboy]

Touch or Touch Diamond?

Sorry, Touch Diamond.

[moaske]

I'm struck with horror as i witness here how many of you have been won over to the 'dark side' of Mr Jobs... Since when are products of both camps comparable anyway?

# HTC device's/WM slow and sluggish? So is iPhone (i've seen many)...
# Choice of devices with Apple?: 2... Versus WM; too many to count
# Hype? Exactly!! That's exactly what Apple creates: a hype.... And now HTC gets blamed for doing the same??? I don't get that...
# Compatibity with so many sub-systems: WM 10 out of 10, iPhone: much worse...
# I saw someone mention that at the time of the iPhone introduction there was no match in the WM camp... Not true: O2 XDA Flame...

With the sheer versatility of the WM platform in hardware and software, i simply cannot imagine how any well thinking person cannot find a device of his flavour that 'lives up to the hype'...
I use Windows PC's, so i guess that's just one, and more than enough, reason NOT to get an Apple device...

And so the bashing of M$ and WM by the Apple fanboys goes on and on... ;)
You know; that smells just like Linux fanboys bashing the M$ company...

[Deslock]

Slick interfaces and warm fuzzies last for the first few days - any reviewer worth his salt looks past that and looks at the deeper issues, like does the device perform well at the tasks it was designed for. I'm not knocking the iPhone, but the Touch Diamond is a much better device than this reviewer makes it out to be.
That's true, but while many portray the iPhone as being all show and no go, its interface advantages are not due to its pizazz but rather because it's responsive and effective (ie navigation is quick and easy and screen-space is efficiently used).

Frankly, I think all this complaining about the iPhone getting better reviews is silly. Fluff reviews are always hit and miss when it comes to details, especially for consumer devices. And in this case, the iPhone and Diamond reviews were written by two different people, so their emphasis is obviously going to differ.

Furthermore, I don't understand why Jason thinks the Diamond was unfairly picked on for poor battery life. Regarding the Diamond, he wrote that they "heavily criticize the battery life for not lasting through heavy use over a weekend" while the iPhone got a better rating despite its users needing "to charge the device every other day even with moderate use". Jason characterized it with his question "So why is one product slammed and one product just barely criticized? It's like everyone is terrified to criticize the iPhone. Ridiculous"

Reading the article, I got a different impression. Both reviews mentioned battery life as a negative. On the iPhone, Chris Green wrote:

A bigger issue is that of battery life. We expect the larger battery to yield similar performance to the 2G iPhone - ie you'll probably need to charge it at least every other day even with moderate data use - but we'll confirm this when we've been able to test the the phone more extensively.
I interpreted that as a complaint (the context being that he had just complained that the plastic case doesn't feel as solid as the old metal one). On the Diamond, Tim Danton wrote:

We hesitated a little before placing battery life in the Bad section.
That doesn't seem like a slam to me. They even qualified why they decided to put it in the "bad" section:

the type of person who's going to opt for the Touch Diamond isn't the sort of person who also wants to hold back on what they do of a weekend just so they can eke out a bit more battery. And for those people, the life could easily disappear during that time.
So in the articles, the iPhone battery life is described as a bigger issue while the Diamond battery life is described as being minor enough that they were hesitant to list it in the bad section. I'd say that the 2 star rating for the Diamond was due to their other criticisms of it.

[whydidnt]

# HTC device's/WM slow and sluggish? So is iPhone (i've seen many)...

# I saw someone mention that at the time of the iPhone introduction there was no match in the WM camp... Not true: O2 XDA Flame...

With the sheer versatility of the WM platform in hardware and software, i simply cannot imagine how any well thinking person cannot find a device of his flavour that 'lives up to the hype'...
I use Windows PC's, so i guess that's just one, and more than enough, reason NOT to get an Apple device...

And so the bashing of M$ and WM by the Apple fanboys goes on and on... ;)
You know; that smells just like Linux fanboys bashing the M$ company...

Blindly bashing Apple, simply because it's Apple is no better than those who would bash MS and it's platforms simply because it's MS. Perhaps you might want to re-read your post and consider this.

Not having used an iPhone, I can't comment directly, but I have used an Ipod Touch and don't find it sluggish. It particularly excels in multimedia and Internet Applications. If those are primary uses for your phone (besides it being a phone) it probably IS the right choice instead of Windows Mobile. There is no right or wrong, and it's gets tiring to read both camps seeming to declare "a winner" over and over, when the "winner" is what ever device best meets the end-users needs.

As for the XDA Flame, I'm sure it's a decent device, but lacking North American cell and 3G bands makes it a non-starter for many of us -- not to mention it's still impossible to match the iPhones 16 GB of onboard memory. The best you can do is 10 GB, with an 8 GB microSD card. Also, no onboard GPS on the Flame. Oh, and the Flame also is HUGE compared to the iPhone, despite it's weaker feature set.

From a hardware perspecitive I really think Apple provides the best feature/performance/size device right now. I think WM still provides features that I find important and aren't available on Apple, which makes WM a better choice for me right now. But, I won't go so far as to say those that chose the iPhone are simply sheep an are buying into the hype. The iPhone 3G is a darn fine device and meets the needs of a large percentage of the population. The sooner MS and it's partners start addressing the hardware differnce the better, in my mind.

[Jason Dunn]

Add to that the XDA developer's community and there have been several versions of improved ROMs available over just the last month that have greatly improved several areas of the Diamond, not just its speed.

To be fair, the number of people willing to go the warez* route is pretty small in the grand scheme of things - I certainly would never advocate that someone download and install an illegitimate OS to fix problems that HTC should fix themselves. HTC need to fix this problems themselves.

(*and yes, that's what taking someone else's software, altering it, and distributing it without permission is)

[latinware]

I'm using the Diamond as my primary device right now, and I'm mostly satisfied with it.

***long quote trimmed by mod JD***

I had own almost all of the HP line of pocketpc's, Eten's (which are excellent), lately the iPhone 8Gb (it's my primary phone number) and since last week the HTC Diamond. I must say it's a very nice piece of equipment, very reliable compare with the HTC Touch Cruise witch it's a pain in the ass!. The Diamond it's a step ahead, HTC have done a nice work with TouchFlo something that Microsoft never tougth about it until Apple came with the iPhone OS. So, iPhone is a good machine but very limited, specially in the software side, mostly is good for games, music and goodies but it's a lousy machine when it comes to do business tasks. The Diamond has all the software you need for business, good comm software, mail services, chatting, etc. The only fault on Diamond's it's the ****ty battery, it's a pain in the butt... Overall I think it's a hell of a nice machine and HTC at least is going in the right direction.

[Janak Parekh]

I'm struck with horror as i witness here how many of you have been won over to the 'dark side' of Mr Jobs... Since when are products of both camps comparable anyway? Since both are "smart phones" that handle both phone and PDA tasks? And why is Apple the "dark side"? What does that make Linux-based phones, if I may ask?

In my opinion, this whole binary thought process is really simplistic. "X sucks and Y is good and nothing else is the truth." The simple fact is that each platform has its advantages and disadvantages. I know it's human psychology to want to pick one and say it's superior, but nothing is as simple as that. ;) I'm looking forward to Android's release; if for no other reason, now it won't be an "X vs. Y" approach as Palm vs. WM was (and now WM vs. iPhone).

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Slick interfaces and warm fuzzies last for the first few days - any reviewer worth his salt looks past that and looks at the deeper issues, like does the device perform well at the tasks it was designed for. I'm not knocking the iPhone, but the Touch Diamond is a much better device than this reviewer makes it out to be. The problem is that everyone has different requirements, and so different devices address them differently.

I think part of your lament is a fundamental problem with reviewing: everyone has different priorities, and so people are going to review devices inconsistently. Apple, for instance, tends to prioritize consumer features over enterprise features; most reviewers look at those features first, and so the iPhone gets unfair love. On the other hand, a lot of WM users can't envisioning using Apple products, because it doesn't satisfy feature X.

Regarding your complaint about different reviews being inconsistent, well, that feeds straight into this. Every reviewer has different priorities. Is this a weakness? Perhaps. But you also have devices that themselves have different priorities. It's a tricky problem - and that's why my approach (as you painfully know) is to meticulously document every last bit about the device and let the reader decide if it's for them or not. This is also why I end up doing one review every two years. ;)

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Oh, the one other tricky concept I want to throw out there: very often, people don't know what their own requirements are. There's features we'd all like to have; but do we know what we absolutely need and, if so, which devices fulfil those requirements?

This is a fundamental tenet of Software Engineering, and why there's this whole notion of requirements documents and use cases. For better or worse, the consumer world doesn't work this way, which leaves a lot of ambiguity.

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

I know it's human psychology to want to pick one and say it's superior, but nothing is as simple as that.

Sure it is! This site is called Pocket PC Thoughts thoughts after all. :D

[Janak Parekh]

Sure it is! This site is called Pocket PC Thoughts thoughts after all. :D D'oh, what was I thinking? :eek: I take it back, the Pocket PC is clearly superior. ;)

--janak

[moaske]

Sure it is! This site is called Pocket PC Thoughts thoughts after all. :D

Aaaah....finally someone here says something sensible... ;)

Blindly bashing Apple, simply because it's Apple is no better than those who would bash MS and it's platforms simply because it's MS.... Oh, and the Flame also is HUGE compared to the iPhone, despite it's weaker feature set.

Wrong again... :( Why don't you place things into perspective? The Flame is even older already than the iPhone 2G, which IMHO has an even weaker feature-set than the Flame...


Well, to cut it down to the requirements one has (as mentioned here several times):
I do require quite some hardware features (like a hardware keyboard), but mostly i require a platform that's highly tweakable, and most of all one that 'talks' to my Windows environment in every possible way...
Two things the iPhone misses.
IMHO the iPhone appeals most to consumers that want a phone first of all, and a lot of blingbling in the process. I guess iPhone users don't dial into servers, message/text intensively (requiring a hardware keyboard like me), nor want to install tons of software to be able to do even more...
That's a fair approach...but don't call that a 'smartphone'... I'd say that is what most people would call a feature phone... (aspecially because of the very closed nature of the platform in question).

But most of all i think i see a difference here which everybody has overlooked; 'we' PPC users are used to carrying a full blown PC environment in our pocket's which has become a phone as well over the last years... While the iPod which can be used as a phone now, is of course a completely different angle of approach... Anyone can see my point?

[Deslock]

Wrong again... :( Why don't you place things into perspective? The Flame is even older already than the iPhone 2G, which IMHO has an even weaker feature-set than the Flame...

I think that whydidnt's posts are reasonable and have proper perspective, but both of you are being subjective when you argue about which feature-set is stronger. Which tool is best for you depends on your needs... obviously in general the iPhone is geared towards consumers while WM is more appropriate for enterprise, though it varies from user to user.


IMHO the iPhone appeals most to consumers that want a phone first of all, and a lot of blingbling in the process. I guess iPhone users don't dial into servers, message/text intensively (requiring a hardware keyboard like me), nor want to install tons of software to be able to do even more...
That's a fair approach...but don't call that a 'smartphone'... I'd say that is what most people would call a feature phone... (aspecially because of the very closed nature of the platform in question).

I agree with Janak Parekh on this; the iPhone is a smartphone. It does provide most of the features you just listed via 3rd party apps. While the 3G iPhone doesn't support jailbreak apps yet, there are remote desktop and SSH solutions for the 1st gen iPhone. And there are "tons of software to be able to do even more" (as you put it). A hardware keyboard is a priority for you and others who do a lot of texting, but it is not a requirement for smartphones (all of which -including the iPhone- are compromises).

Also, I dunno if you're being dismissive of the iPhone's interface with your blingbling comment, but as I wrote:
while many portray the iPhone as being all show and no go, its interface advantages are not due to its pizazz but rather because it's responsive and effective (ie navigation is quick and easy and screen-space is efficiently used).


But most of all i think i see a difference here which everybody has overlooked; 'we' PPC users are used to carrying a full blown PC environment in our pocket's which has become a phone as well over the last years... While the iPod which can be used as a phone now, is of course a completely different angle of approach... Anyone can see my point?
Sure. Apple has always viewed its devices as "appliances" more than computers. They allow for some expandability, but they're generally more restrictive. The trade off is that their devices are usually better at what they do, but they do less (making them inadequate for a lot of users/companies). I'm generalizing, but you get the idea.

And I agree that PPC phones feel like the phone was tacked onto a PC environment (with mixed results). However, I wouldn't characterize the iPhone is as "an iPod which can be used as a phone" because it's fairly well balanced between being a phone, pocket web tablet, and media player (with fewer compromises in those areas than most previous all-in-one devices).

The 3G model adds sanctioned 3rd party applications to the mix and with Apple's developer tools and launch of their application store, it seems they're serious about them. It still isn't going to do what a lot of business users need, but that doesn't exclude it from being a smartphone.

Having written all that, Apple are still morons for not adding global PIM search and copy/paste :)

[Janak Parekh]

IMHO the iPhone appeals most to consumers that want a phone first of all, and a lot of blingbling in the process. I guess iPhone users don't dial into servers, message/text intensively (requiring a hardware keyboard like me), nor want to install tons of software to be able to do even more... I actually text a fair bit, and I'm consistently faster typing standard English with the iPhone soft-keyboard than any hardware keyboard I've used (which dates all the way back to a thumbboard for my iPAQ 3870, then my Treo 700w, the JasJar, and two different Blackberries). The predictive text entry is extremely good, and less effort is required to tap characters on the iPhone's screen, which reduces the amount of travel my fingers must do. The situation where the iPhone's text entry breaks down is when you need to enter proper nouns or other non-standard-English jargon; then you do need to go slower and more accurately, and the JasJar/HTC Universal's thumbboard is by far the best for that. You definitely also do have to correct a bit more even for standard English, primarily when the predictive system gets it wrong. However, for SMSing I'm really quite happy with the iPhone keyboard.

(I will gladly accept that the soft keyboard may not be for everyone. However, I think it's criticized far more than it deserves. I actively prefer writing email and SMS on the iPhone to the Blackberry that I also carry.)

That's a fair approach...but don't call that a 'smartphone'... I'd say that is what most people would call a feature phone... (aspecially because of the very closed nature of the platform in question). You're drawing a very difficult line between smartphones and feature phones. I think you could have successfully argued that the iPhone was a feature phone before version 2 of the firmware, but now that third-party applications can run natively on the device, I think it's pretty clear one should call it a smartphone.

As a devil's advocate position: one could argue that only "open" Linux-based phones are smartphones, as with WM you can't [legally] change the OS, tweak the kernel, etc. You could argue that sites like xda-developers exist, but similarly, there's jailbreak for the iPhone, which makes it a generic BSD/OS X box. Openness is clearly relative.

But most of all i think i see a difference here which everybody has overlooked; 'we' PPC users are used to carrying a full blown PC environment in our pocket's which has become a phone as well over the last years... I hate to break this to you, but again, it's not an absolute comparison as you make it out to be. If you search this forum over time, there's been tons of complaints about how WM is artificially limited in various ways which reduces its ability to be an effective mobile computer (e.g., the CE kernel's task limit, ActiveSync requirement to install many apps, etc.) It really depends on your definition and your requirements.

--janak

[moaske]

As a devil's advocate position: one could argue that only "open" Linux-based phones are smartphones, as with WM you can't [legally] change the OS, tweak the kernel, etc. You could argue that sites like xda-developers exist, but similarly, there's jailbreak for the iPhone, which makes it a generic BSD/OS X box. Openness is clearly relative...
Maybe i should have clearified that i meant "from an end-users point of view"...
Shurely WM users don't have to visit XDA-dev's for just installing a simple app. With 1st gen iPhone one had to start hacking strait away... You must agree with me that a WM device is far more tweakable than the iPhone ?

And yes; of course i can see the 3G is very valuable upgrade over the first-gen iPhone... :)
However...i'll stick to my TyTN II and upcoming Touch-PRO

Moaske

[Janak Parekh]

Maybe i should have clearified that i meant "from an end-users point of view"...
Shurely WM users don't have to visit XDA-dev's for just installing a simple app. With 1st gen iPhone one had to start hacking strait away... You must agree with me that a WM device is far more tweakable than the iPhone ? Without a doubt, WM devices are more end-user-tweakable than the iPhone. However, I was making a devil's advocate argument: WM isn't really "open"; "open" is a very difficult argument to apply in the mobile space.

And yes; of course i can see the 3G is very valuable upgrade over the first-gen iPhone... :)
However...i'll stick to my TyTN II and upcoming Touch-PRO Whatever device works for you, that's the most important. :)

--janak

[Menneisyys]

As for the XDA Flame, I'm sure it's a decent device, but lacking North American cell and 3G bands makes it a non-starter for many of us -- not to mention it's still impossible to match the iPhones 16 GB of onboard memory. The best you can do is 10 GB, with an 8 GB microSD card. Also, no onboard GPS on the Flame. Oh, and the Flame also is HUGE compared to the iPhone, despite it's weaker feature set.
.

Th Flame compard to an iPhone (3g)? there isn't much comparison here (apart from the more flexible Windows Mobile). The Flame has always been buggy with lacking manufacturer support. For example, it was only recently that it has received a cooked WM6+ ROM (no official upgrade for a device that has only been released slightly over a year ago...) O2 doesn't support the Flame any more...

[motogp]

Long time lurker... been reading this great site since the first day it appeared.

Way back when, when PocketPC OS first supported the phone feature with the added cellular modem in the PDA, a 'smartphone' was born.

A 'smartphone' was first designated as any cell phone that ran an alternative OS. At the time, an alternative OS meant that a separate Apps processor was needed to run the OS, as opposed to running the OS on the cellular modem chip, such as those from Qualcomm, TI, Nokia, etc.

Nowadays, cellular chips are so powerful, and have the proper software hooks, that you do not necessarily need a separate apps processor. But the major ingredient is still there - it runs an alternative OS.

So a smartphone is a Windows Mobile device, an iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Symbian, Android, and all other flavors. A feature phone is a typical device from Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T that you are familiar with from Day 1 of the cell phone, and they still exist today.

It traditionally has nothing to do with how 'open' it is, how configurable, or how many third party apps exist. If people want to expand on the definition, than so be it.

I should note that there was a time when Microsoft had two OSs, Smartphone and PocketPC Phone (or something liek that). Smartphone was non-touch screen and meant for traditional small form factor phones, and Pocket Pc Phone was for PDAs. I guess this website knows about that since it maintains Smartphone Thoughts as well...

Out of curiosity, I just read the Wiki page on this topic - the debate continues over there as well. To me - VERY simple - alternative OS.