Microsoft have enjoyed some real success recently, introducing further developments to their native Windows Mobile platform and scoring a series of victories on the American market, where Symbian scored but a 5% share of total sales in Q2 2008. The growth of Linux-based product sales, the popularity of iPhone and, in general, lack of public love for Nokia in the United States make Symbian lose its importance, the share is steadily falling year after year as seen from the official financial reports. In such conditions, the Windows Mobile platform takes to establish a firmer ground for itself, regardless of all its traditional weaknesses. The mentioned flaws are usually found in the ergonomics, which is actively being worked on. Touch interface are constantly sprouting about in models by various manufacturers, which is a logical and expected step.
Should you happen to be wealthy, picky and highly concerned with questions of style and elegance, you might find yourself wishing for a Touch Pro. The solution looks really good in the boundaries of its class. Considering the release date and price of Xperia X1, this model is going to pose to it a fierce challenge.
Advantages: Stylish Design Handy Keyboard Powerful CPU VGA-screen Motion Sensor TouchFLO 3D 256 Mb RAM
Disadvantages: High Price Easily Soiled Too thick Poor camera
The HTC company pioneered the touch functionality by giving their latest PDAs a TouchFLO trademark interface. While the competitors are toiling at decent imitation, the company went on to announcing an updated version of the interface in their recent Diamond PDA. The ceremony took place in London, this summer. The model retains the status of the most popular WM product and one of the most advanced WM gadgets of all currently available from the market. This is largely due to the massive shift to an updated hardware platform, bringing on such powers as a 528 MHz CPU, an VGA screen, a 192 Mb of RAM and so on. A more detailed review of Touch Diamond is available by the following link:
Another important trend in the world of WM is the entry of A-league players into this part of the market, and the growing power of those who’ve already been into the business for some time. Acer have just acquired E-TEN and are currently making plans for a bright distant future, as seen from this year’s roadmap. Samsung and Sony Ericsson appear to have a more short-sighted, and in fact more promising, business prospect. Sony Ericsson have done some ODM business with HTC, and announced a newly developed hardware platform in Barcelona, to be featured in their new XPERIA X1 PDA.
The irony of the moment is explained by the fact that SE’s brainchild is a close relative to HTC’s own product Touch Pro, which in its turn originates from Diamond, the principal difference between the two consisting in the availability of a QWERTY keyboard in the latter. This couple of expensive high-profile PDAs have been reviewed in a special comparison article available by the following link:
Touch Pro is a top-class QWERTY PDA by HTC, picking up the torch of the previous side-sliders, but also following the style established by Diamond. This is the most expensive and functional PDA for the time being, and it is going to remain such until the release of XPERIA X1. It possesses the most powerful hardware ever seen in a WM PDA, and the price is floating above the 800 euro bar. At that, HTC doesn’t put the gadget into any special spotlight, taking priority of Diamond.
Networks:
GSM 900/1800/1900 and UMTS 900/2100, HSDPA
GPRS / EDGE:
+/+
Operating System:
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
CPU:
Qualcomm MSM7201А 528 MHz
RAM / ROM:
256 / 512 Mb
Screen:
2.8”, TFT VGA 640x480, 65k, touch screen
Camera:
3.2 Mp, auto-focusing
Expansion slot:
microSD
Connectivity:
extUSB, Bt 2.0, Wi-Fi
GPS:
+
FM:
+
QWERTY:
+
3.5 mm:
-
Battery:
1340 mAh
Measurements
102 x51 x 18.05 mm
Weight
165 g
Price
800 euros
The set of accessories coming in the sales box is remarkable for the unity of style. Also this is true for optionally purchased accessories like the cradle, which is not included into the default package. In fact, you don’t get too many extras out of the box: a charger, a synch cable, a headset, a manual and a disk, - a bit too scarce for a top-class product.
As it was mentioned on a few occasions, Touch Pro looks much like Diamond and the following models, e.g. the S740 smartphone. This style is to stay around for quite a long while. It looks indeed appealing, but doesn’t prove as very handy when it comes down to practice. Nevertheless, Touch Pro swapped the glossy back panel of Diamond for a matte one, which helps to battle the grease and fingerprints.
The geometrical stylization makes the handset look in a way reminiscent of Nokia Prism, the difference consisting in a more chaotic and less flat texture, the Finns sticking to a symmetrical, stricter pattern. The bumps and downs on the body of Diamond make it a bit unstable when resting on a flat surface, so an unlucky tap of stylus can make the handset jump about. In case of Touch Pro, this was partially fixed.
The only available handset color is black, and no other options are currently expected. In this color, the handset has a very reserved look. The easily soiled surface is something we weren’t crazy about. The back panel is now different from Diamond, but the front one still has that glossy coating always looking for an extra bit of dirt. That's a very disappointing nuance, concerning the fashion status of this device.
The quality of assembly is just as high as with Diamond, a subtle screech can only be heard when pressing on the central spot of the back panel, which is due to the bumpy nature of its surface. The sharp edges no longer grow worn spots, unlike Diamond. The plastic is really expensive, backed up by a metal framing for increased durability.
We made the handset fall to the ground for a few times during our test, the resulting damage was minimal. That’s a very important point, for you would normally expect a fashion handset to be rather frail. The protective glass of the screen didn’t get a slightest crack, the only apparent ‘damage’ was a battery cover jumping out and aside from the casing as it hit the ground. But even with all its strengths summed up, Touch Pro can hardly compete with XPERIA X1 in looks, here’s a more detailed comparison touching on these points:
The controls come in a limited number. On the casing edges, you will discover a volume rocker on the left, a power button at the top and an interface slot at the bottom. You aren’t even getting a camera button, kindly asked to prefer the central button of the navigation block (the latter, by the way, is encircled by a touch-responsive track just like a NaviWheel found in some Nokia Nseries handsets). In both cases, this element makes some real sense, used to scale documents and zoom the camera, as far as the HTC product goes. The implementation of this element isn’t really efficient, but it still does a good job.
You would think that the buttons are in fact touch pads… but in fact they are not. All the controls are mechanical, simply shaped as a solid panel. Neither the side buttons nor the central one pose any trouble, but there’s a bit of a miss about the navigation arrows. These buttons are just too small and concave, that is sunk a bit under the surface. Touch Pro uses the same kind of light indication as Diamond does, which looks really interesting. The central piece pulses with light after a missed call or a new message, the side buttons flash and fade in a loop. Nothing similar was featured in any WM-based PDA before.
As for Diamond, the combination of mobility and functionality looks really amazing. All the specifications announced for the new platform are provided by a very compact chipset which fits into a casing no thicker than a centimeter. This achievement is something we liked the best of all latest improvements introduced by HTC into their products. The handset fits your hand like a glove, doesn’t feel annoying while in the pocket, etc. And this goodness doesn’t assume a compromise of any sorts – you get a full-fledged touch interface, a 2.8.’’ large screen and so on. Touch Pro is something you won’t find such a variety of goodies in, two centimeters thick, by the way. Naturally, you can’t feel comfortable holding this slab in your hand, which feels like a shame after Diamond.
The keyboard stands among the most prominent features of Touch Pro and enjoys a very successful implementation, which stands out against the background of the poorly implemented keyboard of X1 by SE. In this case we see five rows of buttons with an eye-candy backlight. The element is unique in a sense, the extra row of numerical keys is simply great. But that required a more compact, crowded placement of buttons so you have to adapt yourself to this and it’s going to take a couple of days. Touch Pro, objectively thinking, has the best keyboard among all other WM PDAs.
Nokia E61, and its 61i modification are largely considered to be the golden standard of QWERTY PDA in terms of text input convenience. So a comparison to Nokia E61i / E71 is always welcome. Despite a larger size of the buttons, Touch Pro seems to provide less comfort because of a worse button feedback, you don’t feel the taps as crisp as in the case of E61i. Despite the plenty of space between the buttons of X1, which theoretically should stand for a better keyboard ergonomics than the crowded keypad of Touch Pro could provide, the later actually wins in the majority of cases.
The extra button row is the greatest thing about the keyboard of HTC Touch Pro. Nothing of the kind was around in the earlier PDA and smartphone models. No critical improvement in ergonomics comes with the innovation, E61i retaining its leading position in the speed and comfort and text input. The crowdedness and poor feedback of buttons is the scourge of Touch Pro’s keyboard. Something of the kind is what Nokia E90 suffers from, but neither larger buttons nor more buttons proved to be able to beat the unmatched ergonomics of the E71 keyboard. Nokia E71, on the other hand, loses to either of the two in the ergonomics race: its buttons, in addition to being crowded, are also too small and few in number to be able to compete with the two as an equal.
Once you open the thing, a quick function menu pops up, something which wasn’t featured in the interface of Diamond. Pity, this can’t be turned off at will, and it won’t let you rearrange or rename the icons on the list either. Some might not like it.
Touch Pro bases off Qualcomm hardware, remarkable for its formidable potential. Unsurprisingly, that stands for a superb connectivity including even an RDS-compatible Fm tuner. The device is designed to operate in GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS 850/1900/2100 networks, supports GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA.
The wireless short-range communication is done through Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and Wi-Fi. We weren’t able to spot any problems here, everything worked the way it was supposed to. A2DP provides a clear signal, the sound is loud and sports a fine quality. Sadly, upon a connection release the signal transmission doesn’t automatically cease but is rather redirected at the onboard speaker. The following Bluetooth profiles are supported:
- File Transfer
- Generic Access
- Generic Object Exchange
- Handsfree
- Headset
- HID
- Object Push
- Personal Area Networking
- Serial Port
- A2DP
- Audio/Video Remote Control
- SAP (SIM card access profile)
The software side of the connectivity is remarkable for a new connection manager which has grown some better looks like with Diamond, but the functionality hasn’t been increased since Touch Cruise.
The FM tuner features a revamped, more user friendly interface – again, another addition which came about with the new revision of the platform which debuted with the release of Diamond. The received signal quality is traditionally high, the radio can be automatically turned off after a specified period of time is over; automatic station saving and lookup are available.
The implementation of GPS also fell to our liking, in this aspect HTC does no worse than E-TEN of Mio, the new Quallcomm hardware stuffing tells for itself. As for the software side, the default Google Maps isn’t as great. The manufacturer switches the navigation software package for the third time for their PDAs.
The handset is equipped with a 256 Mb RAM and a 512 Mb ROM. But the 4 Gb of flash storage seen in Diamond are nowhere around here, replaced with a microSD expansion slot that supports hot swapping, with the only limitation of having to remove the battery bay cover. The battery itself doesn’t have to be extracted, so nothing to worry about.
A whole 256 Mb of RAM is a serious advantage not to be found in the earlier WM models. Modern WM applications are picky enough to demand a RAM as large as 256 in order to operate smoothly. Even the simplest Internet Explorer eats about 4-5 Mb of RAM per open page, making 15-20 Mb in total for the four maximally allowed tabs. Now imagine you’re running multiple applications at once. That’s it!
Moreover, the very Windows Mobile itself uses up about 25 Mb RAM with only its basic functions, the rest of applications excluded. The TouchFLO add-on takes another 30 Mb. A 64 or 128 Mb capacity would never do, now you see that.
Diamond was the first HTC model to feature a full support for VGA graphics; prior to that day, only E-TEN, Gigabyte and a few B league were able to offer VGA screens with their products. The advantage wasn’t actually very important, yet helping to seize an extra bit of target audience consisting of hi-res fans. Previously HTC carried out a series of experiments targeting the implementation of VGA screens, but the concept was never seen in flesh publicly until the appearance of Diamond.
The screen is powered by the TFT technology and has a diagonal of 2.8’’, supporting a 65K colors palette. The quality of image is perfect, beating the analogous solution by E-TEN. The Touch Pro screen doesn’t do well in the sun though, but still better than TyTN II and on a local scale quite good for a WM product. It’s hard to tell for sure why the developers rejected a cascade casing orientation, just like in the latter, it would have been a very logical step to implement one.
Regardless of the traditional continuity in naming of the products, the actual changes in the launcher are extremely important, putting it far aside form the previous versions; the most appropriate adjective to describe these would be 'cardinal'. Another peculiar point in is that the TouchFLO launcher would do its best to prevent itself from being installed on other PDA models, including other Touch models as well, let alone no other Diamond-based models with this feature included to be expected in the near future. The current Diamond model is meant to be the one and only TouchFLO 3D powered offer on the market for the few approaching months or even longer periods, HTC Raphael being a mere keyboard-supplied variation of it (without any other notable differences, rather being a subversion than a full-fledged independent model).
Following the trodden path, the standard WM interface isn't blocked, leaving TouchFLO a mere plugin that can be toggled on and off at any given moment. At the same time, TouchFLO now sport much more options just seen from the increase in the number of tabs. Each group of applications is organized in a horizontal line of icons. The main screen is animated and uses as many 3D effects as possible. For example, a lot of 3D effects are applied during photo / contacts browsing or message viewing. It looks indeed good in dynamics, nearly inexpressible in static photos. Even the famed iPhone interface starts looking quite bleak in comparison with TouchFLO 3D.
The availability of a weather watch application was something we especially liked about the new interface. For instance, a temperature reading below zero results in a seemingly frosted surface of the screen (of course done through graphical special FX), a rainy day will bring on a windshield wiper cleaning the drops away now and then. A certain, and very pronounced, feeling of immersiveness with the outside world is created, which makes this way of graphical design implementation extremely effective. We have never encountered such an impressive implementation of a user interface's graphical features, despite all the obviousness and necessity of something like this.
The desire to imbue the interface with as much of an aesthetical impact as possible didn't hinder HTC's efforts for preserving a high level of ergonomics, so be prepared to see a controls system optimized for single-finger operation, minimized stylus use, even during text input. The overall functionality of the new TouchFLO has reached a very high level; the 'touch circle' acts as a zoom trigger in multiple menus like the gallery or browser. A number of enhanced playlist sorting options have been introduced for the player, the number of alternative input methods has been increased. However the largest part of the accent is put onto the visual impressions produced by the well-designed product, not in the actual functionality, which still retains a secondary role despite of the obvious progress on the functional front as well.
HTC Touch Diamond ranks among the first PDAs utilizing WM 6.1. An article relating the whole change history (also covering the preinstalled software package) is available on our site (Обзор Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional). This article only touches on the exclusive software coming with this particular model.
Diamond is the first PDA to feature Opera 9.5, which comes along with a copy of Internet Explorer. The browser offers a fully functional QWERTY keyboard and excellent web surfing possibilities. A double tap on a random spot of the screen serves to instantly zoom at that point; the screen orientation is promptly changed as you sway the handset around, thanks to the onboard accelerometer.
The support for Flash animations is in a way limited – some flash clips failed to play on a specific social network site, yet Youtube worked just fine. The browser interface is extremely handy.
A dedicated Youtube manager is available. The options are few; everything is very intuitive: search, sort, bookmark and quality setting. A good addition considering the availability of Wi-Fi.
Teeter is another exclusive application exclusively belonging to the Touch product family, being in essence a game (analogous to the well-known iPhone game) where you have to pass a ball through a labirynth avoiding the holes. This game makes an extensive use of the accelerometer capability. On touching the walls, the ball responds with a vibro signal.
The other useful Diamond applications include the MP3 trimmer applet for cutting longer mp3 tracks into shorter fragments for use as ringtones. An RSS reader and audio equalizer are also available.
The gallery uses a new interface yet the old functionality is preserved unchanged (of course fully exploiting the accelerometer capability). A ZIP archiver and Adobe Acrobat are traditionally available.
All the standard Windows Mobile elements were modified to better fit the Touch controls. The Today menu has grown bigger, a vertical alphabet index bar was added to the right side of the contact list, menus can be browsed through with the finger and so on. A few extra possibilities were added.
The system shortcut menu appear on tapping on the status bar. A few extra icons of a comfortably large size appear. The same goes to the sound volume controls – a full-size indicator is provided for.
The task manager has become more finger-friendly, the icons and control elements are now bigger. A memory usage indicator is available; it’s possible to terminate a selected process or all of them at once, or switch to the settings tab using an appropriate shortcut.
There are several input methods available. On par with the standard ways common to all WM products, the brand Touch virtual keyboards are available in 12, 20 and QWERTY variants. The latter isn’t a full-screen one (unfortunately) which results in an ergonomics below the level of iPhone; a smaller screen is another factor telling on this.
This is probably the sole point on the specifications sheet of Diamond and TouchPro you might get upset about. A mass appearance of 8 Mp cameraphones by Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG is on the horizon, but here we have a modest 3.2 Mp. That could have been forgivable if it hadn’t been for the inertness of viewfinder and high susceptibility to lighting conditions, a poor lighting severely degrading the quality of resulting pictures. Even the integrated flash, which is of a very average quality, doesn’t save the day – it’s just not powerful enough to fix the picture and provide an aid to the camera. On the other hand, Diamond didn’t even have that. It’s a pity HTC paid no attention to the camera when designing a new revision of their platform. A 5 Mp unit would have seemed more appropriate, something like in Samsung Wi-Tu (i900)
There’s no lens guard available, so it’s highly advisable to handle the phone as careful as the situation permits – the more you neglect the lens, the dirtier it gets and poorer the photos turn out. The viewfinder uses a landscape orientation, the large touchscreen is used as a control pad, providing access to a variety of options. The shoot button is single-positioned. The maximum resolution of photos is 2048x1536, videos are maxed at 352x288. A 4x digital zoom is available.
The settings come in a plenty, no problems about that.
Let’s have a few sample shots at maximum quality settings:
You see, there’s nothing to get impressed by in these pictures. It’s hard even to take a more or less decent shot in poor lighting conditions, blur occurs almost on every occasion. The macro mode is something which probably works the best among all camera features, due to a perfectly implemented auto-focusing. The camera performance is on an average level, though much faster than with many other WM devices. We hope HTC will eventually revise the camera question in the next platform revision, following the steps recently taken by Samsung. But let us repeat once again – in the narrow scope of Windows Mobile market, a 3.2 Mp unit is still a tad above the okay level, but the platform is revealed to have been lagging behind the market leaders since the day of its birth.
Just like Diamond, Touch Pro uses a Qualcomm MSM 7201A chipset; the CPU speed is 528 MHz. Combined with a capacious RAM and an integrated graphics accelerator, this enables the incredible smoothness in every move of the TouchFLO 3D brand interface (though this interface can’t be called a really fast one, for instance Apple iPhone runs a good deal faster, but we still do TouchFLO 3D justice, it got lots more special effects and animations). If we put apart the interface speed, this model is the fastest WM-based PDA, its powers enabling for a comfortable watching of VGA movies. Stats are better than words, just have a look at the test scores:
It looked a bit weird of HTC to have the top-spec Diamond equipped with a mere 900 mAh battery. Of course, this was compensated by a lot of hardware and software strengths, but still there was a feeling of disappointment around. Touch Pro carries a 1340 mAh battery in its womb; that’s way better than a 900 mAh but not fantastic, for instance Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 comes with an even more powerful battery. Still, the tests yield a fair score:
The Touch Pro handset is going to start selling just in the upcoming days, priced from the beginning at 800 euros, which is a price looking a bit high even for a keyboard-equipped flagship. Prices for HTC PDAs have never been overly temptative, and this new entry is no exception. QWERTY-keyboarded PDAs on the Windows Mobile platform never enjoyed mass success, which suggests a niche status for the new handset. Nobody would expect Touch Pro to sell millions of copies, that’s just an assortment solution for a small established audience. Diamond will remain a priority product for the manufacturer; Pro will probably sell a few times less copies than the older model.
The obvious strengths of X1 are a casing made of metal, a high mobility (it’s more compact and doesn’t weigh as much), a large screen, a 3.5 mm standard audio jack, a high-capacity battery, a better camera. Touch Pro can be proud of its better software compatibility (it does have a canonical screen resolution), a handier application launcher shell, a number of exclusive improvements introduced by HTC to the WM platform, a TV-out, a more convenient keyboard and hardware 3D acceleration.
Model
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1
HTС Touch Pro
Networks:
GSM 900/1800/1900 and UMTS 900/2100, HSDPA
GSM 900/1800/1900 and UMTS 900/2100, HSDPA
GPRS / EDGE:
+/+
+/+
Operating system:
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
CPU:
Qualcomm MSM7201А 528 МГц
Qualcomm MSM7201А 528 МГц
RAM / ROM:
256 / 512 Mb
256 / 512 Mb
Screen:
3”, TFT WVGA 800x480, 65k, touchscreen
2.8”, TFT VGA 640x480, 65k, touchscreen
Camera:
3.2 Mp, auto-focusing
3.2 Mp, auto-focusing
Expansion slot:
microSD
microSD
Connectivity:
miniUSB, Bt 2.0, Wi-Fi
extUSB, Bt 2.0, Wi-Fi
GPS:
+
+
FM:
+
+
QWERTY:
+
+
3.5 mm:
+
-
Battery:
1500 mAh
1340 mAh
Measurements
110.5 x 52.6 x 17 mm
102 x 51 x 18.05 mm
Weight
158 g
165 g
Price
750 euros
The obvious strengths of X1 are a casing made of metal, a high mobility (it’s more compact and doesn’t weigh as much), a large screen, a 3.5 mm standard audio jack, a high-capacity battery, a better camera. Touch Pro can be proud of its better software compatibility (it does have a canonical screen resolution), a handier application launcher shell, a number of exclusive improvements introduced by HTC to the WM platform, a TV-out, a more convenient keyboard and hardware 3D acceleration.
HTC Touch Pro
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1
The segmentation principle is obvious and goes as follows: Touch is more on the practical side while XPERIA has more impressive looks, taking advantage of the metal casing and a stylish design. X1 is going to have a higher starting price, but that doesn’t matter much for Pro will be through several price-cuts before XPERIA makes it to the store shelf. The European price is predicted to be closely tied to a 800-euro official guiding value. A more detailed info is available in our comparison article about HTC Touch Pro and Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1:smape.com/en/articles/phones/HTC_Touch_Pro-Sony_Ericsson_XPERIA_X1-prev.html
HTC Touch Diamond made a revolution in the Windows Mobile market sector this summer. Its keyboard-equipped version going by the name Touch Pro looks a logical continuation of the series, yet not as balanced – overpricing would be a fair term to use here. The high price and a significantly thick casing are the two major weaknesses undermining its market positions, especially in comparison with the Diamond candy bar handset. Should you happen to be wealthy, picky and highly concerned with questions of style and elegance, you might find yourself wishing for a Touch Pro. The solution looks really good in the boundaries of its class. Considering the release date and price of Xperia X1, this model is going to pose to it a fierce challenge.
+ Stylish Design
+ Handy Keyboard
+ Powerful CPU
+ VGA-screen
+ Motion Sensor
+ TouchFLO 3D
+ 256 Mb RAM
- High Price
- Easily Soiled
- Too thick
- Poor camera