iPhone or HTC Diamond?
Hollo and Gonch
Posts: 4,110 Forum Member
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I've rounded down my choice of next phone to between this pair.
The pros for each (for me personally) are:
iPhone
- Brilliant interface
- Iconic
- Fantastic music player
- iTunes integration
HTC Diamond
- Smaller and lighter than iPhone
- Brilliant screen
- Better camera
- Video calling and MMS
From the reviews I've seen, the web experience on both devices is equally good.
Has anyone tried both phones yet? Any views (objective, not fanboy-style) are welcome!
The pros for each (for me personally) are:
iPhone
- Brilliant interface
- Iconic
- Fantastic music player
- iTunes integration
HTC Diamond
- Smaller and lighter than iPhone
- Brilliant screen
- Better camera
- Video calling and MMS
From the reviews I've seen, the web experience on both devices is equally good.
Has anyone tried both phones yet? Any views (objective, not fanboy-style) are welcome!
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Comments
I went to a Carphone Warehouse store yesterday with the view of trying the iPhone, HTC Touch Diamond and the Samsung Tocco.
I firstly played with the iPhone which is incredibly sleek and very nice to use. Compared to the older version when loading maps it was so slow it was unuable, the new one is at least very useful and loads quickly. User interface wise it blows all the other phones out of the window in my opinion.
Drawbacks: 2 megapixel camera - bit stupid really, and lack of MMS.
Positives: UI is amazing, sleek and nice, very usable and larger screen than the others. Browsing seemed nice, plus lots of applications to use.
Samsung Tocco - Nice, but a bit gimmicky, great Camera but well, the UI was pretty poor, and I didnt really like the phone at all to be honest. I was expecting more from it, but its nice that it can give feedback to presses - although thats not a reason to buy a phone.
HTC Touch Diamond - Heres the crap thing - I went into the store with the intention of buying one of these. This thing is DIRE, its so slow to use... the UI is beautiful but responds so slowly. You use it for something and get dumped back to the Windows Mobile backend. It takes an eternity to start up - The thing is... it was awful. I couldnt use it - I was getting so frustrated with it.
Positives: I like the weather application.
I'm not an iPhone fan boy, and really was going to get the HTC - but once I used it, I was glad I actually bothered to try them out. So I'm going to try and get an iPhone when they have some stock.
Just ask to play with them in a store - they are quite accomodating and the guy let me play with all three of them to compare.
Good luck hehe
Couple of other things that I'd suggest you look at when you look at them are Simplify Media (really nice application that lets you stream from your - and friends - home PCs when you are out and about) and Chat (allows MSN on the iPhone).
When you are in the store looking at them browse to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta and http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts.
Don't get me wrong, it's be no means perfect - the poor bluetooth support especially is annoying - but I've used a lot of smartphones and it is by far the best in my opinion.
By the way, the size thing worried mee a bit too, but because it's thin it isn't really noticable in the pocket and has a fantastic battery life (by smartphone standards) although I suspect that the 3G version will suffer on this one.
I think anoyjer pro for the iPhone is the App store. Check it out on iTunes.
That might be helpful. One thing I didnt mention, but I think is really important is the use of the keyboards on the respective devices.
The iPhone one is usable, at first I wasnt really impressed, in the store I was trying to type an SMS and it did take some getting used to - but the keys were usable and overall I did like it. Heres the good bit, the keyboard is reasonably sized for the screen. You can see your message text and you can type, now I am not a lover of this, but I could happily get used to it I think.
On the HTC Touch Diamond it seems great because you can select the keyboard you want and type this way. But what I found was... And this is so sad - the keyboard that you really wish to use (like a full keyboard) takes up so much of the screen you can barely see the text you type.
On the plus side it is worth mentioning you can use a stylus with the HTC Touch Diamond (one is included) which would make the process a little better, but I really wouldnt want to be faffing around with a stylus to send messages or similar when in the pub or something. With the iPhone its not possible to use a stylus - so that is a slight drawback.
But for me, the whole sluggishness of the HTC Touch Diamond has put me off the whole thing. The iPhone is sleek and usable - and I know Windows Mobile is a pain in the ass when you wish to develop on top of that for smartphones (a company I worked at before developed a custom encryption solution for use with such a platform and it was evil to develop with).
I think its personal choice - and if the UI is slightly quicker but still lags and is still as frustrating to use its still a no go.
The only way I see the HTC Touch Diamond as being preferable over the iPhone is if you really hate O2, you really take loads of photos and want the extra resolution, or you simply hate the iPhone so much.
My advice to you is to go to Carphone Warehouse and ask to play with the iPhone (theres normally a display one anyway) and the HTC Touch Diamond and make your own informed decision. This way you wont get bitten and will hopefully walk out with the product you like and can use after trying it.
Email lacks the immediacy of MMS when you're out and about and your friends are too. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is a disappointing omission.
I appreciate all the replies and will take the advice given and try out both at CPW before deciding...
updated my rom...and it flys now
i too looked at the iphone at the weekend
was shocked how bloody big it was
i have a diamond and i am more than happy with the phone
Here's where it gets tricky..
Orange has offered me:
Dolphin 35 (600 anytime any network mins + unlimited text + unlimited data) for £25 (£10 cheaper than normal) and they'll throw in the HTC Diamond.
If I stay with them.
So, should I take the deal? If so, I could:
a) Sell the iPhone, Keep and use the HTC Diamond
or
b) Sell the HTC Boxed Brand New, keep using the V.1 iPhone and use the money to pay for many months charges for the Orange contract.
A tough decision.. what would you guys do?
your like a stuck record.
So lets try to get this sorted now
While most phones can now handle email
the vast and i mean stupidly huge vast amount of the general public have no wish to use email on their phones, which makes MMS a function that the MAJORITY will want to see, its pure laziness on apple's part not having that function in the phone.
keep the HTC its a very nice phone
You can download the MMS app if you desperately want it.
The vast and I mean stupidly huge vast amount of the general public, probably don't even have their MMS settings set up.
Personally I think I used it two or three times, the first time I got a camera phone, for novelty, then never used it again. It's over-priced anyway, and apart from kids (who the iPhone is NOT aimed at), I don't know anyone who uses it.
As I said, if you do desperately want it for some reason, you can just install the MMS app, job done, but most people don't use it.
Well its lucky i'm able to see what goes over our network in a day, and i'm fairly happy that MMS is and has been a big hit.
And i know you can get the APP, my point is, for a phone that is costing you so much, something as simple as MMS should come pre-loaded on the phone.
But then how would Apple manage to pillage their oh so loyal fanbase.
PLlease how do I do this, I have a touch dimond, I am a bit stupied so I will need a simple guide, thank you
You always have to turn this into a fanboy issue.
The facts are that most of us with iPhones would like to see MMS in there, just because it does offer something different to email and to check a box. Though obviously I can't speak for everyone and every mobile usage scenario.
However, for most of us, its exclusion is not that big of a deal. Things like MMS and copy/paste should be included but the sum of the parts far outweighs those exclusions.
The way I see it, I will now look at any other phone without an AppStore on the home screen as a huge disadvantage. Its just a far far bigger deal to me than MMS.
And for these reasons i'd go with the iPhone over the Diamond. iPhone is a better platform than Windows Mobile for me right now. The tradeoffs are worth it.
It's either because they need to pay someone something for including it or they lose revenue in some way with people using MMS over some other Apple included process? It surely isn't anything to do with their ability to include it as there's already a third party app available.
So this must come down to money, plain & simple.
Anyway going back to my original conundrum.
I have decided to keep my V1 iPhone (non 3G) and upgrade to the V2 software when the hack is released. I'll accept Orange's more than generous incentives to stay and sell the HTC Diamond on eBay or something and put the money towards my price plan. That way my monthly price plan should average out to around £5.50 a month. Almost a free tariff.
.......
they appear to have gone to great lengths to accede to the other main requests (third party apps, exchange support and other enterprise features, subsidies) so it seems strange to me that they haven't included MMS.
Apple, along with countless other US companies are notorious for ignoring international and other widely used formats in favour of its own internal market.
The initial argument was why did Apple originally design & build the iPhone without 3G? Answer was because the vast majority of its own internal market did not use 3G - So the answer isn't so much to do with lists or ability, it's purely to do with their own (perhaps nationalistic) agenda.
the whole thing is a mystery to me!
No, the answer was because it drained battery life too quickly. Jobs said that January 9th 2007 when the iPhone was announced.
Orange offered me the dolphin 35 which has more minutes than I would ever use and unlimited text and browsing with a 10% discount for working locally and a further discount for trading in any old phone which came to about £24 per month and £39.99 for the handset, compared to £159 handset and £30 per month with just about enough minutes and texts to get by but a much better (imo) browsing experience.
I had 2 friends with me who discussed what I would use the phones for and to be frank I just love gadgets and probably won't use even 50% of the features on either phone. What it boils down to is if I had a Diamond would I crave an Iphone and vice versa.
Conclusion if I had an Iphone I wouldn't regret not getting the Diamond but I would regret not having an iphone if I had a Diamond.
Lets hope the Iphone is in the stores tomorrow which is the impression I'm getting, too many stores are saying either Wednesday or Friday. I won't put myself through the pain of the o2 website or CPW terrible customer service again. If there are no phones available I may just get a diamond out of spite.
I used this function on my n95 almost daily, on the HTC its a much better experience than the n95.
I agree with the answersw that people should go for the phone that meets their needs.
What gets my goat is people proclaiming the iphone, to be the best thing since mighty white.
There is one thing i could find while using the new iphone that i would have liked on the HTC, and thats the screen size, if i used it some more i can see the appeal in the UI.
I might even ebay my iPod Video and get a touch.
But as a phone, it is lacking in too many features to be the phone Apple and their fans claim it to be.
take a trip over to macrumors forums (where apple users and fans hang out) and you'll find plenty of posters complaining about any number of things about iphone; there isn't some sort of blanket brain washing that has taken place.