What I like about the Diamond:
- incredible screen quality; its got a really good screen, the best I've seen and beats iPhone
- its nice and small
- its full featured with GPS, 3G & HDSPA, not only pictures but video recording, Video calls, Opera Mobile 9.5 (equivalent to Safari)
- its 'open'; tho it uses Windows Mobile 6.1, there are no built-in restrictions that I'm aware of (example VOIP over 3G or GPRS) and 3rd party developers have access to all the tools required to create apps for it
- it supports background processes to run (like an IM client)
What I don't like about the Diamond:
- The touch interface is flakey; it doesn't respond well and consistently to swipes and other gestures. Case in point is try adding a city in the US to the built-in weather application. This is a real test of patience....
- in general its kinda slow (yes I have the latest ROM); most things take a second or more, which over time really starts wearing on you...
- Battery life, battery life.... Ok this is in general a problem in the industry, heavily outdated battery technology for the kinds of functions that we find in smartphones/pda's these days. It is completely unacceptable tho that when I start my morning with a fully charged battery at 8am and by 1pm the phone dies because the battery is depleted. What did I do? Not all that much 2 or 3 short phone calls, a little web browsing (maybe 45mins in total) and having Windows Live messenger running in the background. Nothing extraordinary I believe and the kind of usage pattern that you can expect for a multimedia internet device like the Diamond. Actually I haven't even used the built-in music player during this session and I've noticed previously that that also drains the battery in a serious way...
- Windows Mobile; tho Touchflo hides some of Windows mobile ugliness, its still a kind of clunky bolt-on that adds to the slowness of the interface. Windows Mobile itself tho marginally improved over the years is light years behind iPhone's interface in my humble opinion. I'm talking about the Windows Mobile Professional versions here for touch screens. I don't have any experience with the standard version (which is for so called smartphones without touch screen).
I do not have personal usage experience with the iPhone (other than having played with other's 1st gen iPhone on occassion) but what little I have experienced, the interface is superior to that of Windows Mobile + Touchflo... The iPhone touch interface works consistently and is fast in response unlike the Diamond with touchflo... Its still not perfect either in my opinion because of the 'closed' nature. A few things I don't like:
- no background processes (IM client)
- restrictions (no VOIP over GPRS/EDGE/3G)! I guess Apple had to do this in other to have AT&T's support??
- Apple's kind of controlling nature over 3rd party development
I understand from colleagues that have the iPhone (1st gen still) that battery isn't really great for them either. About 1 day is the average maximum.
The one other interesting phone out there (to me at least) is the Samsung Omnia i900. This phone is also based on Windows Mobile 6.1 so I suspect it will have some of the same problems (and also good points) as the Touch Diamond.
Conclusion, the 'perfect' PDA-phone still does not exist. I hope someone is working on a killer battery! Maybe Android will be an interesting OS. I hope Apple opens up more and Microsoft should start the mobile OS from scratch and incorporate lessons from Apple's interface building.
I'm sure we'll see some interesting devices yet in the future. One other development I'm looking forward to is WiMax. Any others anyone?
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