martin_ayton
07-16-2009, 11:02 AM
Ok, what I actually have s a T-Mobile Compact V, but I'm fairly sure that the hardware is the same, except for a modified back cover. The software load looks pretty normal though. I have had the device for 24 hours or so, so this is really a first impressions article. I'm looking forward top Don Tolson's more in-depth review.
Out of the box, it all looks very good. The box contains the handset, battery, charger, USB cable (USB to HTC's extUSB), crappy wired headset, slip case, "Getting started" CD and what looks to be a decent quality screen protector. The battery arrived about 80% charged, which was as it should be.
The initial power up took a long time: More than 5 minutes. I did try the old trick of removing the customisations by soft resetting the device just as the customisations start. No dice: If you try that the device starts over and does the customisations anyway.
This is actually my second Diamond2: The first arrived on Monday and it quickly became apparent that the accelerometer wasn't making the screen change from portrait to landscape in any app, despite being callibrated. The replacement unit, which arrived yesterday, had the same problem but running 'Teeter' (a game which uses the accelerometer to let you guide a ball through a maze) seemed to kick-start things and it will now switch screen orientation depending on how the device is held. Unfortunately, this is an ongoing problem: I often have to run Teeter before I can get the screen to turn.
Also there are very few apps on the initial load which support screen rotation. TouchFlo 3D does not and, most irritating of all to me, the initial password screen does not. That latter is weird, because putting that screen into landscape was never a problem with my Tilt. It means that I have to use the screen keyboard one-handed / fingered for initial password entry, and with a password containing letters, numbers and symbols that is very awkward. In landscape, typing with fingers or thumbs on the touch keyboard is remakably accurate - helped a lot by the short vibration whenever a key is touched.
The WVGA screen is really nice. My comparison is with all the QVGA screens I've had to date, so I may not be that hard to impress. But I do like it.
The Compact V has Opera9 as a standard browser. I like it. I'm annoyed however, that it doesn't pick up my list of favorite sites which got copied over on the initial ActiveSync sync. To have my favorites list on the device and not have it instantly available is just unbelievably stupid and broken.
Setting up the sync was a breeze and ActiveSync worked fine and quickly. I was very happy to see, when I first plugged the Diamond2 into the PC, that it offers the option to run as a USB mass storage device, although - apparently - any storage card in the PPC is not visible when this option is used, which rather defeats the object and means I'm very unlikely ever to use the option. This morning, I was not pleased to have the PPC and the PC not recognise each other when I connected them. Having to delete partnerships and start the sync over each day is going to get old very fast indeed, so I'm praying that this was a one off.
I'm going to try to run this new PPC with as light a software load as possible, so I am putting apps on slowly. Currently, SPB Backup is loaded, as is MS VoiceCommand. I've had the PPC linked to my car system via BT, and the BT implementation on this blows the one on my Tilt out of the water. It was simple and intuitive to set the partnership up with the TouchFlo interface and it worked great. It also makes the contacts list on the PPC very visible to the car. I needed the JetBlue HandsFree extension to make that work on the Tilt, but the Diamond2 does it even better than JetBlue. VoiceCommand works fine through Bluetooth.
The lack of configurable buttons on the PPC is another annoyance: I am slowly getting used to a purely touch driven experience without a D-Pad, but I sorely miss a button that I can configure to close applications. No button to start VoiceCommand is going to mean that I only ever use that app with a BT headset in future.
I think I'll be able to live with TouchFlo 3D as my UI. It does a pretty good job, although the inability to run in landscape is very odd. You mostly have to dig to get to the underlying OS UI, although - curiously - not in the calendar. The moment you open that, you need to reach for the stylus. I can't see why HTC have worked hard to skin the Contacts app, but not the Calendar - very odd.
In summary: It feels like a really well designed bit of hardware, which is going to be let down by a lack of joined up thinking in the UI and the software implementation. No change there, then...
I'd be happy to try to answer any questions.
Out of the box, it all looks very good. The box contains the handset, battery, charger, USB cable (USB to HTC's extUSB), crappy wired headset, slip case, "Getting started" CD and what looks to be a decent quality screen protector. The battery arrived about 80% charged, which was as it should be.
The initial power up took a long time: More than 5 minutes. I did try the old trick of removing the customisations by soft resetting the device just as the customisations start. No dice: If you try that the device starts over and does the customisations anyway.
This is actually my second Diamond2: The first arrived on Monday and it quickly became apparent that the accelerometer wasn't making the screen change from portrait to landscape in any app, despite being callibrated. The replacement unit, which arrived yesterday, had the same problem but running 'Teeter' (a game which uses the accelerometer to let you guide a ball through a maze) seemed to kick-start things and it will now switch screen orientation depending on how the device is held. Unfortunately, this is an ongoing problem: I often have to run Teeter before I can get the screen to turn.
Also there are very few apps on the initial load which support screen rotation. TouchFlo 3D does not and, most irritating of all to me, the initial password screen does not. That latter is weird, because putting that screen into landscape was never a problem with my Tilt. It means that I have to use the screen keyboard one-handed / fingered for initial password entry, and with a password containing letters, numbers and symbols that is very awkward. In landscape, typing with fingers or thumbs on the touch keyboard is remakably accurate - helped a lot by the short vibration whenever a key is touched.
The WVGA screen is really nice. My comparison is with all the QVGA screens I've had to date, so I may not be that hard to impress. But I do like it.
The Compact V has Opera9 as a standard browser. I like it. I'm annoyed however, that it doesn't pick up my list of favorite sites which got copied over on the initial ActiveSync sync. To have my favorites list on the device and not have it instantly available is just unbelievably stupid and broken.
Setting up the sync was a breeze and ActiveSync worked fine and quickly. I was very happy to see, when I first plugged the Diamond2 into the PC, that it offers the option to run as a USB mass storage device, although - apparently - any storage card in the PPC is not visible when this option is used, which rather defeats the object and means I'm very unlikely ever to use the option. This morning, I was not pleased to have the PPC and the PC not recognise each other when I connected them. Having to delete partnerships and start the sync over each day is going to get old very fast indeed, so I'm praying that this was a one off.
I'm going to try to run this new PPC with as light a software load as possible, so I am putting apps on slowly. Currently, SPB Backup is loaded, as is MS VoiceCommand. I've had the PPC linked to my car system via BT, and the BT implementation on this blows the one on my Tilt out of the water. It was simple and intuitive to set the partnership up with the TouchFlo interface and it worked great. It also makes the contacts list on the PPC very visible to the car. I needed the JetBlue HandsFree extension to make that work on the Tilt, but the Diamond2 does it even better than JetBlue. VoiceCommand works fine through Bluetooth.
The lack of configurable buttons on the PPC is another annoyance: I am slowly getting used to a purely touch driven experience without a D-Pad, but I sorely miss a button that I can configure to close applications. No button to start VoiceCommand is going to mean that I only ever use that app with a BT headset in future.
I think I'll be able to live with TouchFlo 3D as my UI. It does a pretty good job, although the inability to run in landscape is very odd. You mostly have to dig to get to the underlying OS UI, although - curiously - not in the calendar. The moment you open that, you need to reach for the stylus. I can't see why HTC have worked hard to skin the Contacts app, but not the Calendar - very odd.
In summary: It feels like a really well designed bit of hardware, which is going to be let down by a lack of joined up thinking in the UI and the software implementation. No change there, then...
I'd be happy to try to answer any questions.