Omio News Blog

Pimp My Mobile! HTC Touch Diamond Gets Blinged Out!

Firstly, my abject apologies at that most ‘street’ of headlines, but it is what it is. Some clever blogger has decided to step his mobile phone customisation game up, giving his HTC Touch Diamond a gorgeous pearlescent paint job to make it gleam… Check out the video below, someone finally found a good use for that angled back surface!

The special three-dimensional flecks of paint allow it to refract light in a crazy oil-slick fashion, making it look nice and shiny as well as living up to the Diamond name a great deal more.

You win this round, Adam Lein of Pocketnow…just wait til you see my Nokia N95 complete with spinning rims and fuzzy dice screensaver!

HTC Touch Diamond Up In Lights At London’s IMAX

HTC weren’t joking when they talked of putting their name about in an effort to garner some brand recognition. London’s jumbotron IMAX cinema has been emblazoned with the Touch Diamond, showing off the snazzy TouchFLO 3D interface and the cool Rolodex-style contacts list.

It’s a good move to show people that there are good handsets around if one is prepared to look beyond the usual suspects…

With people starting to take HTC seriously as a manufacturer in their own right as opposed to a backroom designer for the big boys, the positive impact is starting to be felt. Unit sales are expected to top a million only three months after launch, and they are confident of 2 million Diamonds shipped by the end of 2008.

With the various nips and tucks HTC are constantly giving the Diamond, and the relative rarity of the handset (when I saw a 65 year old man blasting Vivaldi out of his iPhone on the Underground, I could actually feel my street cred ebb away…) it could still overtake Apple’s baby to become the must have phone for those in the know.

Source: PocketNow

HTC Touch Pro Gets Turned On…

Following on from the hardware hands-on of the HTC Touch Pro, the::unwired has decided to fire it up and show us the wonder of the TouchFLO 3D interface with keyboard integration. In short…there isn’t any.

The Windows Media powered handset does have a revamped firmware to take further advantage of the landscape mode and keyboard, as predicted. It makes the most of the hardware adjustments, with immediate access to keyboard-y features as soon as it gets slid open. The downside is the lack of any TouchFLO 3D when in keyboard mode, moving back to a very simplistic setup for applications like texts and e-mail. A shame to break that super slick touchscreen experience, the good stuff like mulitmedia can only be accessed when the keyboard is sheathed.

The user experience does seem a lot smoother in the new video, however, and the value of a physical keyboard as well as one on the touchscreen becomes so much more apparent when seeing the device at work. The Touch Pro has certainly done a good job making up for the shortcomings of the HTC Diamond.

Still pencilled in for a late August SIM-free release, it looks to be a real strong entry in the smartphone sector. Whatever will become of the poor old Diamond? Obsolete before it’s time…

Samsung Omnia / HTC Touch Pro Double Whammy!

A highly prolific day for the guys at the::unwired, bringing us news on two hotly anticipated phones in quick succession. The Samsung Omnia gets an exhaustive review, whilst the keyboarded-up Pro edition of the HTC Touch Diamond gets a five minute hands-on job.

Positive impressions too, the Windows Mobile-powered Omnia seems like the 5 megapixel super-Tocco that it sets out to be with the increased memory size, TV-Out and 3.2″ touchscreen making for a more refined experience than the slightly sluggish precursor. Have a look at their video of the user interface in action, watch out for the classy landscape to portrait flip. Nice.

As for the Touch Pro, the Diamond design gains a physical keyboard but loses 4GB of memory, which is a fair trade if looking for a proper smartphone to send out reams of texts and e-mails from. Also, HTC are certainly listening to the consumer, taking the early negative criticism (glossy back, slow firmware) onboard and making the necessary adjustments to make the Touch Pro a winner. It may have a big ole’ butt to stash that keyboard away, but it looks like a very appealing handset in Arne’s well manicured hands, and much smaller than imagined.

Both excellent phones, both coming a lot sooner than expected with provisional late August/early September releases. Looking forward to it. Unsure of which seems the best? Have a look at the two adjacent with our Omio Compare tool, interesting which has the better specs…

HTC Touch Diamond Shines Despite iPhone Launch

Well, the HTC Touch Diamond has been released within a hair’s breadth of the biggest other phone launch in history, but that hasn’t stopped it flying out of stores.

Orange’s new flagship phone has very similar touchscreen functionality, but a great 3MP camera, haptic feedback and a very arresting user interface, of which there is a gorgeous demo here. As of writing the Touch Diamond is already out of stock at Orange’s site, no surprise as this phone is eagerly anticipated by the anti-Apple brigade, and the tariffs are pretty impressive.

Worry not, Omio has your back and the device is still available through some of our other retailers. GSMArena also has a very in-depth review of the HTC Touch Diamond, taking it to pieces with aplomb and then liking those pieces.

If the iPhone 3G isn’t quite for you (there have been reported cases of people not liking it, it’s true) then the Touch Diamond is a more than capable alternative. A bit of a harsh mistress to use at times, but a glittering example of HTC’s new direction all the same.

Watch for Omio’s review in the coming days.

HTC Makes A Name For Itself In The U.S.

Heard of HTC? Unless you’re really into your tech hardware, possibly not. Maybe they aren’t a Samsung or a Motorola just yet, but they are the largest manufacturer of Windows Media-based handsets, and they want you to know about it. Okay, not you, but the US…then you.

With the launch of the Touch Diamond in the UK and the States, as well as the forthcoming Touch Pro, HTC seems determined to penetrate the public conscious with a multi million dollar marketing push across all media featuring the tagline, “Set Your Fingers Free”. Don’t mean to be a stickler, but whilst HTC were busy fiddling with styluses (stylii?), Apple beat them to the finger pie buffet with the iPhone. The Touch Diamond still has one…

The imaginative ad on their site highlights their new focus on being a maker of fun, intuitive touch-driven handsets, rather than remaining an austere PDA maker for the gadget-savvy. They have been known for courting a fair few networks in their time with many exclusive handsets including o2′s XDA series, but it seems they wish to get their solo project off the ground finally.

Combine this with their more prominent branding on handsets, the community aspect they are attempting to develop with the HTCWiki, and the Touch Diamond soon to be available on all networks in the UK, HTC may be a force to be recognised as much as reckoned with in the smartphone sector.

Offline iPhone 3G? It’ll Cost Ya…

Psst…wanna buy a iPhone 3G? The Italian Vodafone site has been kind enough to release a concrete figure for their unlocked handsets, a mean €499 (£395) for the 8GB whilst the 16GB comes in at €569 (£450).

Don’t go booking your tickets just yet, the Italians are adhering to the same worldwide July 11th release date. If you can’t wait or have even more money than sense, you could get a snazzy grey market HTC Touch Diamond for a bargain basement €625 (£495) today!

For all you people eagerly waiting for the situation in Blighty, o2 hasn’t released their pricings for offline or Pay-As-You-Go phones just yet. Judging by how nice they’ve been so far with the contract offers, it could be a steal! All in all, these new generation of smartphones are a bit pricey, maybe taking one of the contract deals is better than shelling out loads upfront…

HTC Diamond Gets Glittering Review

Well, the competition has been fierce, but the winner of the first full review of the eagerly anticipated HTC Diamond is….MobileBurn! Those lucky blighters have had a dirty weekend away with the slinky handset, and have the home videos to prove it.

Mostly kind words to be said about it, but the best element is by far is their video of the TouchFLO 3D interface. It all looked a bit like target video footage in the early days when the Diamond was unveiled, but the real deal on a retail (for Asia) handset is very impressive indeed. All clean lines and intuitive touch gestures, a pleasant alternative to the iPhone‘s trailblazing UI.

Caveats? Well, the slightly creaky Windows operating system doesn’t seem to be keeping up with the very demanding multi-touch/accelerometer screen, and there are also seems to be some D-pad functionality issues, but largely it seems like HTC have a potential success on their hands! The sim-free edition is out in about a week at a wallet-bursting 429 GBP. The major networks and their subsidised prices follow suit in the coming weeks. Let’s just hope Mr. Jobs doesn’t have anything particularly epic to say at Apple’s imminent keynote…

Super Asus Galaxi

Now Asus are known for making the sexiest Little PC That Could, people are suddenly taking a lot more notice with the newest entry in their mobile phone stable. The quad-band P320 Galaxi, despite being a bit of a YAiC (Yet Another iClone) in the looks department, it has some serious specs to defend itself. With GPS being this season’s must have accessory for the smartphone market, the Galaxi is no exception.

It has the auspicious honour of being the smallest GPS mobile on the block, cutting a slim figure at 99 x 54.5 x 13.35 mm. Doubling as a more than competent audio/visual media device, it has a 2-megapixel camera and also incorporates the innovative ‘Asus Today’ feature.

Very similar to the Vista/Apple widgets, icons such as time, calendar, messages, weather and the media player can be seen easily in the same window – providing users with easy access to functions. Packing a 65,000 colour 2.6-inch touchscreen and running on Windows Mobile 6.1, all the wireless bases are covered too with Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi connectivity.

A strong all-rounder, due for release by the end of June (around £300 offline), it definitely stands up to close scrutiny as far as vital statistics goes. With the HTC Touch Diamond out early next week and the LG Secret turning plenty of heads, it looks like the battle to be the iPhone alternative will be a bloody (exciting) one.

Source: Asus