HTC Touch Diamond Cell Phone Review - Imaging

The Touch Diamond's 3.2-megapixel camera does itself justice for still images, offering decent resolution for a cell phone camera, though it doesn't do so well for video capture. Noise levels and color accuracy are in the range expected from a cell phone camera, which is never as good as a dedicated digital camera. The camera and video interfaces are good and offer a lot of options, though they are a chore to navigate through with multiple pages of options and can be quite unresponsive to input at times.

Resolution (6.54)
To evaluate a camera's resolution, we take pictures of an industry-standard chart and run the resulting images through image analysis software made by Imatest. Imatest analyzes the pictures to measure the point at which black and white lines lose definition and begin to blur into each other, expressed in line widths per picture height (lw/ph) on the horizontal and vertical. As with most things we measure, higher numbers mean better resolution.

In this test, the Touch Diamond's 3.2-megapixel camera fared quite well, scoring better than every other one of our comparison phones. Our comparison phones include the Nokia E71, a notable high-performing camera in the imaging area. Note that the Touch Diamond and the E71 both have auto-focus capabilities, and while this adds a little to the time it takes to take a picture, it's still quite nice to a relatively high-quality camera on a cell phone. Cell phones rarely come close to dedicated digital cameras in most areas, but we definitely appreciate the ability to take better-than-average pictures if a digital camera isn't at hand.

Cell Phone	HTC Touch Diamond	Nokia E71	iPhone 3G
Score	6.54	6.46	3.33
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1213/1214	1206/1329	866/897
Image of Resolution Chart

Cell Phone	HTC Touch	Samsung Ace	Blackberry Curve 8320
Score	3.56	0.90	5.25
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	895/1082	449/674	1087/933
Image of Resolution Chart

Color (4.08)
To evaluate a camera's color accuracy, we use another industry-standard chart, the GretagMacbeth chart. Pictures of that chart using the phone's camera are then run through the Imatest software, which then provides data on how closely the camera reproduced the chart's colors. The data comes in the form of 2 charts - the first is a view of the GretagMacbeth chart and gives a visual demonstration of what the camera capture. In this chart, the smallest rectangle shows the actual "correct" color, the largest rectangle shows what the camera captured, and the last interior rectangle shows what the camera should have captured with correction for lighting.

Imatest also generates a color error chart to display graphically how "off" the camera was in capturing color. In this chart, the squares indicate what the ideal color capture would be and the circles show how the camera captured that particular color. The line connecting each square and circle represents how accurately the camera captured the color - the longer the line, the more inaccurate the camera was. The chart also shows the level of saturation for each color captured by the camera - if the circles are closer to the center of the chart than the squares, the camera is capturing under-saturated color. If the squares are closer to the center of the chart than the circles, the camera is capturing over-saturated colors.

In the Touch Diamond's chart, you can see that it doesn't capture color well throughout most of the color spectrum, and it also captures under-saturated color. But this level of performance puts it roughly in the middle of the pack of our comparison phones, with the Blackberry Curve putting up the highest score. The Touch Diamond still performs far better than its predecessor, the HTC Touch, as well with its score of 2.23.

Cell Phone	HTC Touch Diamond	Nokia E71	iPhone 3G
Score	4.08	4.55	3.90
Color Checker Chart

Cell Phone	HTC Touch	Samsung Ace	Blackberry Curve 8320
Score	2.23	2.04	4.92
Color Checker Chart

Noise (1.30)
To determine the level of noise in a phone's camera, we use the GretagMacbeth color chart again, taking pictures of it at various lighting levels ranging from the equivalent of bright daylight down to candle light. Noise is more prevalent in low-light situations since any capturing errors in the image sensor can produce signals greater or less than what is actually present in the image being captured, resulting in graininess and inaccurate color. The resulting images from the various lighting levels are run through the Imatest software, which evaluates noise consistency through the different lighting levels.

Again, the Touch Diamond scores at about the middle of the pack among our comparison phones in this area. As previously mentioned, we don't expect cell phone cameras to offer the quality and features of a dedicated digital camera, and noise is an area where they typically don't perform well. The Touch Diamond's performance here is okay and is better than the average of all the phones we've tested, so it will be fine in a pinch but you should expect more noise as lighting levels decrease.

Live Preview (8.50)
The still camera's live view on the Touch Diamond takes up the entire screen. It appears to be reasonably accurate in showing the colors of the framed scene. With the automatic white balance setting enabled by default, you'll see the image shift visibly as you pan around. Moving quickly does blur the live preview, though not as badly as we've seen on other phones, and it becomes clear very soon after movement has stopped. Captured images are framed pretty much as they are seen in the live preview, so you can be confident that you're capturing what you meant to with the Touch Diamond.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (2.39)
To test this, we time how long it takes to go from the unlocked standby mode to the moment the camera captures a still image. This is meant to approximate someone spotting something to take a picture of and whipping out their cell phone to quickly take a picture. If you have a lot of these kinds of moments, you'll want to see a fast time for this test. Unfortunately, the Touch Diamond doesn't deliver that well here, taking 8.38 seconds to complete this test. The default TouchFLO interface places the Photos and Video menu sixth in the list to scroll to, and then when you get there, you must tap on the tiny camera icon in the top right to open the camera application. The Touch Diamond has an auto-focus feature on by default, and it always takes the time to focus your image before it actually captures the picture. All of this adds up to those 8.38 seconds, putting it dead last among all of our comparison phones. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Shot to Shot Time (0.51)
To test this, we time how long it takes to capture 5 successive images, starting with the camera application open and ready. To avoid any unnecessary delays in this test, we disable the automatic review of the last image taken, if possible, which we could do on the Touch Diamond. Despite this, the time to auto-focus the image before capture, and the amount of time it takes for the image to be saved to memory after capture really slowed the Touch Diamond down here, earning it the poorest score among our comparison phones, and one of the lowest scores ever among all the phones we've tested. However, not every phone we test has a 3.2-megapixel camera like the Touch Diamond, so they do have less information to save to memory with every picture, so this should be a consideration as well. You can change the camera's settings to take pictures a lower resolution, and doing so cuts down on the save time considerably, but we conduct these tests at the default settings, and the Touch Diamond is set to take pictures at the full 3.2-megapixel resolution out of the box. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Shutter to Shot Time (0.80)
To test shutter to shot time, we time how long it takes for the shutter to activate and capture an image by taking a picture of a stopwatch that was started at the same time the capture button was pressed. As with the shot to shot time, the Touch Diamond's auto-focus slowed it down here, yielding an average time of 2.51 seconds to capture a shot after the capture button was pressed. This is again the slowest time and lowest score among all of our comparison phones. With this kind of performance, you'll most likely not catch the moment you wanted to if things are moving fast in the scene you've framed. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Interface (6.0)
The photo/video interface isn't the most intuitive to navigate at first. In order to get to the camera application, you must scroll from the Home screen to the Photos and Videos menu and then tap on the tiny camera icon on the right, or you can get to it through the Programs menu. Both are not quick, and there is no shortcut or dedicated button to make it any easier. Once you're there, you're presented with the live preview and nothing else, requiring a tap on the screen to bring up the camera options and more. We found that a tap didn't register every time, and the menu is a bit slow to come up when it does register, but we'll talk more about this lagginess in the Software section since it was present everywhere else and not specific to the camera interface.

TouchFLO photos & videos pane

That single tap on the live preview shows some useful information and controls right away - in the top right, you'll find a number showing the number of remaining photos that can be saved to the selected storage location, and a slider bar on the left that controls the digital zoom level. There is also a shortcut to the camera album in the bottom left.

It's relatively easy to switch between camera and video mode by tapping on the small camera icon where you can choose to switch to video mode, or choose other still picture modes to take a series of pictures in a panorama, a portrait for a contact, or a picture theme where you can select among a few slightly funny yet cheesy faux frames for your pictures.

Camera main menu

The camera options offer a plethora of useful things, including the ability to select the resolution between 5 different levels all the way up to the maximum 3.2 megapixels. You can also choose from 5 white balance presets and adjust the brightness between 9 levels. There is also a self-timer to delay the capture of pictures by 2 seconds or 10 seconds. An "Advanced" button provides access to *multiple* pages containing the following settings: review duration, quality, capture format, time stamp on/off, storage location, backlight setting, shutter sound on/off, shutter button selection, image effects, metering mode, file naming prefix, picture counter, flicker adjustment, and an alignment grid.

The camera interface has devolved a bit to be less intuitive than on the previous HTC Touch. And although it offers many options to control settings and features, the camera interface is a chore to navigate through that is only emphasized by the general lagginess present throughout the entire system.

Photo Album Software Internal (8.0)
The easiest way to access the first, and probably the most-used, photo album application from the home screen is to simply scroll or click through to the Photos and Videos section. There, you'll see the most recent picture or video taken right away, and clicking or flicking up and down will scroll you through the entire album - this is a nice, quick way to see recent pictures if you want to show one quickly to someone else. Tapping on the screen or using the select button to select one brings you to a full-screen view of that picture, where a menu at the bottom offers you the ability to play a slideshow of the entire album, email the picture, save it to a contact, set it as your wallpaper or delete it. You can zoom in and out easily by rubbing your finger clockwise or counter-clockwise around the select button or on the screen itself. Overall, it's pretty and functional, and as laggy as the rest of the interface.

Photo album

Like the HTC Touch, the Touch Diamond also has a second photo album application, called Pictures & Video, that can be accessed through the Programs list. This software offers more options to beam the selected picture and do some basic editing. It is less visually-pleasing than the TouchFLO album software, but still quite functional.

Manual Control (0.0)
The Touch Diamond offers no manual controls in the camera application.

Zoom (1.0)
As is typical of most cell phone cameras, the Touch Diamond has a digital zoom only up to 4.0x, for which we award only 1 point.

Focus (5.0)
The Touch Diamond's camera does have an auto-focus feature that is activated every time you take a picture. It is always on and cannot be adjusted in any way or turned off.

Flash (0.0)
The Touch Diamond does not have a flash.

Metering (6.0)
The Touch Diamond does offer two light metering options - Center Area or Average. You can also adjust the brightness between 9 levels.

White Balance (2.0)
The Touch Diamond offers 5 preset white balance modes: automatic, daylight, night, incandescent, and fluorescent.

Image Handling (6.0)
The most photo editing options on the Touch Diamond are located in the Pictures & Videos album software. Here, you can rotate and crop pictures, as well as apply an "Auto Correct" color adjustment. You can also rename and re-save images. These same options were also present on the HTC Touch, so no evolution or improvement in this area to the Touch Diamond.

Video Quality (2.0)
Videos captured with the Touch Diamond were surprisingly poor, showing significant pixellation and blurring during movement. As with its predecessor, the videos it can capture are really only good for sharing via MMS. Oh, wait. The Touch Diamond can't do MMS. Scratch that. If you *could* send an MMS on the Touch, that would be the best purpose for the videos it can capture.

Video Resolution (6.86)
Using a similar process to the one we use to test resolution in still images, we take a video of the industry-standard resolution chart with the phone's video recorder and run random frames of the resulting video file through the Imatest software. Imatest analyzes the pictures to measure the point at which black and white lines lose definition and begin to blur into each other, expressed in line widths per picture height (lw/ph) on the horizontal and vertical. Again, higher numbers mean better resolution here.

The Touch Diamond had better results than its predecessor, which is not too surprising given that it has a higher-megapixel sensor, though it's still not up to the level of the Nokia E71. For many, the ability to shoot video with a camera is better than not having it at all, regardless of the resolution, so the Touch Diamond performs here where the iPhone 3G and Blackberry Curve do not.

Video Compression (6.0)
The Touch Diamond can capture video in 2 formats: H.263, 3GPP2, and MPEG-4. It's not all that often that we see cell phones offer a choice in the video file format, and we like what the Touch Diamond can do here.

Interface (6.0)
The  still image and video interfaces are shared on the Touch Diamond, with only some respective menu options differing. It exhibits the same lagginess found when taking still images and frequently failing to even register multiple taps on the screen. When a tap does register (we found that rebooting the phone helped with this issue), the duration of video that can be taken with the remaining memory is shown in the top right with the digital zoom level shown on the left. 

Video live preview

The main settings menu allows you to change the video resolution, the white balance presets, brightness level. Clicking through to the Advanced settings provides access to settings where the capture format, recording limit, storage location, and more can be found.

Video menu

Manual Control (0.0)
As with still images, the Touch Diamond offers no manual controls for video recording.

Zoom (1.0)
Here again, the Touch Diamond has only digital zoom, earning it 1 point in this area. It should be noted that only 1.5x zoom is found for video capture, compared to the 4.0x possible with still images.

Editing (0.0)
It's not often that video editing is possible right on a phone and the Touch Diamond is no exception to this, offering only the ability to rename video files, which does not earn it any points in this area. 

Video album

Modes (4.0)
As with still images, the Touch Diamond offers 2 metering modes, some scene effects, as well as the same white balance presets available for still images.

Previous    Next
Shop for a wireless plan Shop Carrier Type Minutes $/Min Cost Shop   Close Prepaid 0 0.1000 0.00