With HTC enjoying a rebrand like no other and trading blows with the big names in the industry, you might think it was time for them to ease of the gas and start churning out identikit phones...but no chance. Despite sharing a name with a former entry in the Taiwanese phone maker’s line up, the Touch Diamond2 is chock full of new features, design changes and a lot more besides. However, does it have a flawless shine like their breakout handset? We shall see...

Design and Specs

It seems that HTC had taken a leaf from the Gears of War 2 design document for their smart phone sequel, as everything about the Touch Diamond2 is bigger, better and more badass.

The Touch Diamond2 is larger from all angles, adding 6mm in length and 2mm in width to stand at 108mm x 53mm x 13.7mm It has also bulked up a bit, now weighing in a 117.5g. It has the requisite rectangular front, home to a sweet 3.2” 480 x 800, WVGA display.

Face on,  the buttons have gone on a diet, with four sleek  keys – ‘answer, ‘back’, ‘home’ and the new compulsory ‘Windows’ key gracing the front of the device. The power button doubles as a screen lock, and the left gives us the volume rocker and a stylus holster secreted on the bottom, along with a USB slot but still no 3.5mm headphone jack!

A cool touch sensitive bar takes up some real estate between the screen and the buttons, allowing for a virtual crossfader to zoom in and out whilst browsing the internet. A cute, if not entirely practical, way to get around the lack of iPhone-style two finger controls...another concession of using a resistive touch screen and Windows Mobile, which the Touch Diamond2 still sticks by like a loyal wife.

The biggest change has occurred around the back, however... The camera is a competent 5 megapixel affair but the shock is that the sexy bevelled back that became the symbol of the Touch Diamond is gone! The angular rear has been replaced by a far duller, flatter back, but it was apparently a result of HTC listening to the consumer.

The previous handset had loads of trouble resting on a table due to the craggy back, so the faceted edges have been smoothed off, not entirely to its detriment in all honesty.

TouchFLO 3D is another great development by HTC, the latest weapon in the fight to make Windows Mobile 6.1 a user friendly experience. It is exactly the same bare bones operating system the original Diamond ran on, but TouchFLO has seen numerous advances in that time.

 Threaded messaging across texts, e-mail and call history, easier menu navigation and adding contacts, and fixing up notification screens are the latest additions, plugging up all the gaps that used to have users end up in the scary WinMo wasteland. The graphical flourishes that first made TouchFLO so appealing still remain, even the ever popular weather animations.

The few let-downs will hope to be fixed in the imminent Windows Mobile 6.5 update, which the Touch Diamond 2 will support, but for now it is still very competent at turning the user experience from pain to pleasure.

The vast majority of internal memory is handled by a hot-swappable microSD card, so the media side of things is a little less developed than others, but still competent. A proprietary media player supplements the clunky Windows Media Player, but the choice is at least there, and stereo FM radio with RDS is included. Of course, the suite of Microsoft Office file types are supported for viewing.

Calls and Connectivity

The Touch Diamond2 is a handset made for calls as much as cool, so it is good to report that the quality is above average when speaking to others. The connectivity side of things is impressive, with GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi all responding quickly when called upon, but we found the 3G reception to be somewhat lacking, even when in the big city. 

Browsing is fine, with the option to install alternatives to Internet Explorer always there. The zoom bar works well, but only zooms in the most literal sense, sites are not resized for easier viewing for example. The biggest rick that they missed was not to use the zoom bar for anything else. It could have been a great option for scrubbing through tracks, rewinding video, increasing volume, all not capitalised upon. A missed opportunity.

The virtual keyboards and the like are business as usual, HTC offering their own bespoke solution over Windows meagre offering. Available in portrait and landscape, they are also supplemented by handwriting support, although the ample screen means that stylus use is down to a minimum. The Touch Diamond2 is one of the first handsets to make us forget that we were using a resistive screen in a long time, which is a great sign of things to come from Windows Mobile 6.5.

Verdict

A shining example of where Windows phones have come, the Touch Diamond2 flies the flag in terms of slick handset design, ease of use and helpful features. A smart phone without the stuffed shirt and snooty sensibility, the TouchFLO 3D interface can handle everything thrown at it by a power user, and still do enough to keep the uninitiated away from the ugly parts of WinMo phones.

Sitting pretty between the movie fan mobile of the Touch HD and the handset for messaging moguls, the Touch Pro 2, the Touch Diamond2 is a glittering example of a touch screen phone all-rounder that will appeal to everyone.