SINGAPORE : We were impressed with the HTC Touch Diamond (S$1,098) at its launch in London in May. With its noir-like aesthetics and the spiffy TouchFlo 3D interface, it's quite a stunner.

As a communications device, the Diamond is filled to the brim with features - HSDPA (up to 7.2Mbps), WiFi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 and GPS. It sports a Qualcomm 528MHz processor and a dedicated graphics chip to handle slick animations.

Weighing 110g and measuring a svelte 11.35mm thin - it's even more compact than my Motorola Razr2 V8 (at 117g and 11.9mm). Its looks are droolsome - it has a tough steel frame, with a tempered glass plate for the display, and a plastic back adorned with subtle angular contours. The sharp 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen also does justice to the glossy graphics of the TouchFlo 3D interface.

TouchFlo 3D hides the innards of Windows Mobile 6.1 with an icon-based interface filled with 3D animations. You can switch easily among various functions and thumb through contacts, pictures and music files Rolodex-style. You can still jump in to the main operating system (OS) to edit documents and organise email, so don't worry about its pretty looks dumbing down any of its smartphone features.

The responsiveness of the touchscreen seems to have improved substantially since its launch. It's worth noting that the screen is able to sense input from a stylus, fingernails and skin contact. The phone also has a sensor that orientates its visuals to landscape or portrait view.

The touch-sensitive but tactile buttons on the bottom half provide fast access to basic call functions and the home screen. There's also an iPod-like clickable scroll wheel.

The Opera browser renders websites just like a desktop browser, rather than thewatered-down mobile versions on less sophisticated phones. Even though it runs Flash, it won't run movies like those on YouTube. But HTC has included an easy-to-use application to access the video-sharing site.

Even with the absence of a flash, the images captured by the 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera are some of the best we've seen on a mobile phone. There's also a nifty function that allows you to quickly stitch together a panoramic photo. There are no memory expansion slots but the phone does have a roomy 4GB of storage built in.

Subtle effects, like how the scroll wheel glows from top to bottom as it charges, and how the phone jumps into action from its rest state when you pull out the stylus, add to the novelty of the device.

Unfortunately, the Diamond is plagued by some performance issues. The TouchFlo 3D interface crashed twice within a week of use and the phone lagged when we loaded 1GB of songs, often requiring a reboot to get things back to normal. Although the screen is responsive, animations sometimes have a hard time keeping up with our finger flicks as well.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 OS seems to be the phone's Achilles heel. Although slightly improved, it does a sloppy job at multi-tasking applications and is a far cry from being user-friendly - which is probably why HTC built its own interface in the first place.

The Touch Diamond lasted a day with intermittent use of WiFi and GPS. But with a removable battery and a mini-USB port for charging, you'll find there are plenty of options if the phone runs out of juice.

VERDICT

The Diamond is a compelling device, more so than the other so-called iPhone-killers we've seen in the past. Let's hope HTC continues to fix the software bugs or better still, provide us with a Google Android upgrade when it becomes available later this year. - TODAY/fa