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HTC Touch Diamond 2 is a refreshed version of the very popular and powerful phone released about a year ago. The newer version has several changes in design, improved functionality and some changes in hardware. The new HTC Touch Diamond 2 features also improved software and excellent connectivity. But is it worth the upgrade? Read on to find out.

HTC Touch Diamond 2 pros:
+ Quad-band GSM support
+ Wi-Fi and built-in GPS receiver
+ 3G with HSDPA 7.2Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
+ 5 MP auto focus camera with excellent image quality
+ 3.2″ 65K-color WVGA display
+ Latest TouchFLO 3D
+ Qualcomm MSM7200A 528 Mhz CPU and 288 MB RAM
+ Dedicated graphics chip
+ Stereo FM radio with RDS
+ Touch-sensitive zoom bar
+ MS Office Mobile document editor
+ Opera 9.5 web browser
+ microSD card slot

HTC Touch Diamond 2 cons:
- No standard 3.5mm audio jack
- Fingerprint magnet
- Not so good sunlight legibility
- Questionable build quality
- No TV out port
- No magnetic stylus

Design:

HTC Touch Diamond 2 measures 107.85 X 53.1 X 13.7 mm (4.25 X 2.09 X 0.54 inches) and weighs 117.5 grams (4.15 ounces) with battery. When compared with the HTC Touch Diamond you can clearly see that the front panel was changed a bit. The hard button are now smaller in order to accommodate a larger screen. The gem patterns disappeared so the new HTC phone does not resemble a diamond so much. So, now the front panel in the HTC Touch Diamond 2 is dominated by the 3.2-inch screen displaying XVGA resolution. Above the display there is the earpiece, the secondary video-call camera and the ambient light sensor. Below the screen you can see the touch sensitive zoom bar along with the four hardware keys. The top of the HTC Touch Diamond 2 houses the power key, whereas on the bottom you can find the stylus compartment along with the miniUSB port. The left side of the HTC Touch Diamond 2 features the volume rocker and the right side the loudspeaker grill. Unfortunately, there is no dedicated camera key. The back has no diamond-like finishing and the only thing you can see there is the 5 megapixel camera lens.

Performance:

The screen on the HTC Touch Diamond 2 shows very bright and vivid image, yet in direct sunlight it disappoints as you can hardly see anything. The battery performance in the HTC Touch Diamond 2 is quite satisfactory. The menus look very well and the transitions and effects are smooth. The built-in accelerometer allows the HTC Touch Diamond 2 to rotate given menus automatically. Moreover, the HTC cell phone has an interesting feature thanks to which you can mute the phone by turning it face down. There are no problems with signal reception or in-call sound quality.

Multimedia:

The HTC Touch Diamond 2 comes with a music player which strongly resembles the Apple iPod so it is visually attractive. As there is no standard 3.5mm audio jack on the HTC cell phone you are stuck with the headphones you get in the box. Fortunately, the sound quality is more than decent and you can really complain here. The stereo crosstalk, dynamic range and noise levels are very good and so the overall sound quality is very good.
The video player in the HTC Touch Diamond 2 is the standard Windows Media Player which is simply poor. You can of course find something else on the web and you will even have to if you want to watch DivX/XviD videos. When you run the videos you can notice that they look very well on the bright and large screen.
The HTC Touch Diamond 2 can also take 5 megapixel photos in up to 2592 x 1944 pixels. The camera has very simple interface and so taking pictures is really easy. In bright light the image quality is very good with plenty of detail and natural colors. As the HTC Touch Diamond 2 has no flash photos in darker light will not look so good. You can also record videos with the HTC cell phone but only in VGA resolution at 15fps.
Browsing the Internet with the HTC Touch Diamond 2 is a real pleasure as you get the Opera 9.5. The browser is fast and has a bunch of useful features, such as find on page. Zooming, panning and scrolling are smooth and thanks to the high resolution of the scene even the most elaborate pages look really good.

Menus/ease of use:

The HTC Touch Diamond 2 comes with the updated ToouchFLO 3D interface. It works really well and looks equally good and although it misses the capacitive touchscreen you can hardly see it. The home screen in the HTC phone features a clock and a few tabs which have different purposes. So there is one called home which is responsible for call logs, People tab shows you your contacts, whereas the messages tab allows you to write SMSs, MMSs. Emails have a separate tabs, as does the Internet. There is also one for photos and videos and one for music so generally operating the HTC Touch Diamond 2 is very easy and pleasant even though it runs Windows Mobile. All in all, the HTC Touch Diamond 2 is a very decent phone considering its price and specs.
Selected HTC Touch Diamond 2 features and specifications:

• Processor

Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz

• Operating System

Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional

• Memory

ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 288 MB

• Display

3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution

• Network

HSDPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
(Band frequency, HSUPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)

• Device Control

TouchFLO™ 3D
Zoom bar

• GPS

Internal GPS antenna

• Connectivity

Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)

• Camera

Main camera: 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera

• Audio supported formats

AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A
Video supported formats
WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI

• Battery

Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity: 1100 mAh

• Talk time:

Up to 300 minutes for WCDMA
Up to 340 minutes for GSM

• Standby time:

Up to 500 hours for WCDMA
Up to 360 hours for GSM

• Video call time: Up to 150 minutes

(The above are subject to network and phone usage.)

• Expansion Slot

microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

• AC Adapter

Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output: 5V and 1A

• Special Features

FM Radio, G-Sensor

Other recently reviewed cell phones:

HTC Touch Pro2, Nokia 6303 classic, Samsung M7600 Beat, LG KM900 Arena, Samsung S7350 Ultra s, Samsung S7220 Ultra b, Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH, Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, Nokia E75