HTC Touch Diamond Cell Phone Review - Organizer
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Marianne Schultz Published on October 14, 2008 Comment on this |
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| As expected with a Windows Mobile device, the Touch Diamond has more than enough horsepower to keep you organized. Synchronization is available right out of the box and is easy to set up, and there's room for a lot of detail for all of your contact, calendar items, tasks, and notes. Like other areas, the only thing that will slow you down is the general lagginess of the operating system and the unintuitiveness of the entire user interface in general. | |
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Synchronization (7.0)
The Touch Diamond comes with a CD with Microsoft ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center software in the box. Windows Mobile Device Center offers enterprise-level IT functionality to support device fleets in organizations, and is strictly for use with Windows Vista. If you have Windows XP or earlier, you'll need to use Microsoft ActiveSync. Setting up syncing is easy with the wizards that walk you through the entire process, and you can easily select the PIM content in Microsoft Outlook or other Windows PIM applications that you want to sync. Syncing wirelessly over Bluetooth is also possible after the initial wired sync.
As expected and typical of Windows Mobile devices, synchronization out of the box with a Mac is not possible without third-party software.
Alerts (8.0)
Alerts are set by default with every new calendar item, and can easily be enabled for tasks as well. There are alert timing presets that can be selected from a drop-down menu, or the keyboard can be used to enter any time your little heart desires. Setting recurring alerts is also possible and easy to do. Alert sounds can be customized, but this setting is system-wide, not by individual calendar or task item.
An alert will play the designated sound and show an on-screen prompt when it goes off, and the on-screen menus allow you to dismiss it, view the calendar item or task, or snooze it. Ignored alerts will prompt a small alert notification icon at the top of the screen, which will remain until the alert is acknowledged, and the backlight behind the center select button to flash periodically in a fairly unobtrusive manner. As with the HTC Touch, the snooze options are plentiful, providing preset increments from 5 minutes to 1 day. Overall, the Touch Diamond's alerts are flexible and quite functional to notify you of upcoming events and tasks.
Over the Air PIM Sync (2.0)
As a Windows Mobile device, the Touch Diamond supports over-the-air PIM syncing via Microsoft Exchange server. We award 2 points for this over-the-air sync option.
Adding Contacts (5.49)
To test how easy it is to add contacts, we time how long it takes to enter contact names and numbers, using the same names and numbers consistently for every phone we test. We start from the home screen in the unlocked state and the stylus in its slot and stop timing when the contact has been saved. The Touch Diamond did significantly better than its predecessor, the HTC Touch, on which it took 29.42 seconds to enter a contact, with a time of 18.22 seconds. The new contact dialogue is relatively easy to get to - People is the second menu option next to Home in the TouchFLO interface, and clicking on the All People option with the left virtual soft menu key brings you to the contact list, and that key then turns into a New contact button.
TouchFLO people pane
Navigating through a new contact dialogue is a bit clumsy due to the keyboard - every time you move to a new field, the keyboard comes up even if you've just minimized it, and it blocks a significant portion of the screen. What little bit of the dialogue is visible at the top of the screen takes some effort to scroll through using the scroll bar on the right. Combine this with a screen that requires very firm presses and tiny on-screen keys that make using your finger impossible, and you have the makings of a headache if you need to enter many contacts at once by hand on the Touch Diamond. Of course, most business users will simply sync existing contacts to the Touch Diamond, or often create new ones on a computer instead of on the phone directly.
New contact
Many smartphones will automatically capitalize the first letter of some fields in a new contact dialogue, such as the name and city fields. The Touch Diamond does this, but provides no visual indicator that it's going to do this for you. On the iPhone 3G, the shift key is highlighted when you're about to enter a name so that you know the first letter will be capitalized for you. On the Touch Diamond, the keyboard shows all lower case letters in this same situation, even though the first letter of the name you enter will be capitalized for you. This isn't a big deal, but just a small thing denoting a bit of a lack of attention to detail that may stand out to you if you do enter new contacts frequently on the Touch Diamond. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Looking/Sorting/Search (9.0)
Contacts are listed alphabetically in the "last name, first name" format by default. You can choose to show them by Company, or filter the list by Category if you've designated one for each contact. Searching through contacts is easy, with a search bar in the top that will bring up the keyboard when selected. The keyboard can be QWERTY with or without T9, a standard phone keypad, or some other option defined in the global Settings Input menu. Typing the start of a contact's first or last name, or company when contacts are viewed by Company, will bring you to the desired contact. There's also an alphabet bar on the right side of the screen that can jump throughout the contacts list by pressing on the desired letter. This bar can be turned off in the contacts Options menu. All in all, the Touch Diamond offers a high level of contact search and sorting, as one would expect on a business-oriented phone.
Fields (8.20)
As with its predecessor, the Touch Diamond has an abundance of fields for contacts - a total of 40 plus a Notes tab for additional free-form text entry. Like the HTC Touch, it is missing user-customizable fields, but this isn't so bad given the number of fields already available.
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (5.67)
Despite the fact that it doesn't have a physical keypad, the Touch Diamond still has the typical speed dial feature that phones with physical keypads often have where a key can be held for an extended period and the corresponding contact will be dialed immediately. Speed Dial numbers can be set and edited in the Phone application via the Menu, and dialing one is as easy as pressing and holding the corresponding number on the virtual keypad.
The Touch Diamond also offers a Favorites feature. In the People section of the TouchFLO interface, favorites can be designated and assigned a picture. You can scroll through the selected Favorites by flicking up and down on the screen with your finger or stylus, or by using up and down D-pad buttons. Hitting the send button will immediately dial the selected Favorite.
The Touch Diamond features speaker-independent voice dialing, which means that the system does not require you to record voice tags for contacts in advance since it's capable of finding contacts on the fly when the voice command system is activated. It had no problems recognizing any of our test contact names and dialing the saved numbers. Additionally, the system is capable of dialing a phone number that is not associated with a saved contact when recited aloud.
Adding Calendar Items (10.78)
To test how easy it is to add a new calendar item, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state with the stylus in its slot to the moment a pre-defined appointment is entered and saved. Getting to the calendar is easy enough from the home screen, with a link to it on the home screen where the next upcoming event is shown or just the word "Calendar" for you to tap on. In this test, the Touch Diamond took 9.28 seconds, a slightly longer time than the HTC Touch, but a couple of seconds and change faster than the iPhone 3G. The Touch Diamond's screen requires very firm presses, and isn't as responsive as we'd like even when using the stylus, and combined with the lagginess of the TouchFlo interface, slowed things down a bit. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Calendar Views (7.0)
As is typical with Windows Mobile devices, the Touch Diamond offers multiple calendar views that can easily be cycled through with the left virtual soft menu key: day, week, month, year, and agenda. In the calendar's Tools menu, you can set the default view to be used each time the application is opened, choose Sunday or Monday as the week's start day, or 5, 6, or 7-day weeks, and more.
The day and agenda views provide the most information about upcoming events, showing the event title, up to the first 22 characters if it's a long one, and the times of the events. The week view doesn't show a lot of detail, as expected, but does give a nice overview of general availability since scheduled events are shown as blocks in a different color. The month view doesn't show much aside from yellow marks on days with scheduled events. The year view shows the least amount of personalized information with 12 months packed on to the screen, even though it's of a decent size for a compact device. If you designate categories for your calendar items, the views can be filtered by these categories through the Filter option in the Menu.
Agenda view
Day view
All in all, the calendar views are quite functional and should be useful for the average business users. Note that nothing has changed here from the HTC Touch, and the lack of any evolution is a little disappointing.
Month view
Year view
Fields (11.0)
The Touch Diamond does the standard Windows Mobile thing in this area as well, offering a good number of fields to add a nice level of specificity to your calendar. Beyond the basics like title, start and end times, and an alarm, you can designate a category, add attendees from your Contacts list, specify a location. You can also specify a Status, and with the help of the pre-defined Automatic sound profile, any alerts set to go off during an event marked as Busy here will cause the phone to vibrate instead of an audible alarm. As with Contacts, there is also a Notes tab where you can enter more free-form text to supplement the existing fields and custom fields cannot be added. Overall, a good number of fields and still no change here from the HTC Touch.
Adding ToDo/Task (5.38)
To test how easy it is to add a new task, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state and the stylus in its slot to the moment a pre-defined task is saved. The Tasks application is a little buried on the Touch Diamond, with no TouchFLO menu shortcut or shortcut key to access it quickly. Once you get there, you have 2 ways to enter a task - a quick entry bar at the top, or the New Task option in the Menu that's accessed with the right virtual soft menu key. The quick entry bar only lets you enter a task name and specify high or low priority, while using the New Task menu command opens a new task dialogue with many more options. We used the new task dialogue method in this test in order to more quickly specify the due date for the pre-defined task.
New task
The Touch Diamond did okay here, performing slightly better than its predecessor with an average time of 18.58 seconds, but well behind the Samsung Ace and Nokia E71. Adding tasks shouldn't be an issue for most users on the Touch Diamond, and adding a shortcut to it in the Programs screen of the TouchFLO interface should help getting to it faster. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
The Tasks application Menu offers a number of sorting options: status, priority, subject, start date, and due date. This is pretty good flexibility to view your to do items the way you'd like, and earns the Touch Diamond full points here.
Task list
Fields (9.0)
As with contacts and calendar items, the Touch Diamond offers a number of fields for Tasks, even including repeat options and a Notes tab for free-form text entry. Just like the HTC Touch, the Touch Diamond earns full points in this area as well.
Adding Notes (3.53)
To test how easy it is to add a new note, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state with the stylus in its slot to the point when a pre-defined note is entered and then saved. Just like the Tasks application, the Notes application is a bit buried and has no shortcut menu items or keys to get to it quickly. Once you're there, the default text entry method is Writing, where you can simply write freehand on the screen directly with the stylus. Though this may not result in the most legible notes, it was the fastest method among all of the possible text entry options available, so we used this method for this test. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Note Interface (3.0)
The Notes application interface is straightforward but has fewer features than we'd like in terms of searching (not possible) and adding categories (also not possible). You an sort notes in the main view by name, date, size, or type, and you can easily specify the folders where notes are stored using the drop-down menu at the top. All of this is fine and dandy for quick notes, and represents no changes from the HTC Touch, but leaves you hanging if you are a notes nut and need searching functionality and the ability to assign categories to better organize everything.
Notes list
Note Formatting (4.0)
There isn't much in the way of notes formatting on the Touch Diamond, but the Options menu does allow you to set a default note template. The Meeting Notes and Phone Memo template are pre-formatted with some handy fields one would normally use in a meeting or to make notes during a phone conversation, but these can't be edited and you can't create your own template to use. These are nice additions to the Notes application compared to what was available on the HTC Touch, but it would be nicer still if you could select a template when creating a new note and not need to go into the Options menu to change the default before a creating a new note. Beyond this, there are still no options to change fonts, colors, or other options, though you can still add a voice note to a note in addition to text.
Voice Memo (6.0)
While voice recordings can be added to Notes, the Touch Diamond also has a dedicated Voice Recorder application. There is no shortcut key to get here quickly, but you can use the voice command system to get there quite easily. Holding down the send button for a few seconds turns on the voice command system, indicated by a microphone icon in the status bar at the top of the screen, and saying "Launch Voice Recorder" will open it for you. Of course, you can also navigate to it the long way through the menu system.
Voice memos
Recorded voice memos can easily be sent via email or beamed via Bluetooth through the Menu accessed through the right virtual soft menu key. They can also be renamed, moved, or copied, or set as a ringtone as previously described in the Making & Receiving Calls section of this review. You can organize your voice memos by saving them to existing or folders you create, and choose to sort the view of your memos by name, date, size, or type. Overall, the Touch Diamond offers a good level of flexibility with voice memos and the only thing we miss is a true dedicated key to get to it quickly without the need to use the voice command system.
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