[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] njpollard:
I'd been torn between buying a new 3G iPhone or a Diamond, and although I was somewhat put off by some of the issues I'd read on this forum, problems such as lack of MMS on the iPhone meant that I ended up buying the Diamond last week. Here's my short review which I hope will help people who are undecided.

I had an HTC TyTn for the last 2 years, and while it's a very capable handset, I found it almost impossible to use without the stylus, as well as being way too big. This made the TouchFlo 3D interface and the small size of the Diamond particularly appealing for me.

The Handset

The first thing that struck me about the Diamond is how small and light it is. It's undeniably a very good-looking phone - certainly better then the iPhone in this respect. My handset had an Orange badge on the back of the casing, but, thankfully, no changes to the user-interface.

Touch-Flo 3D

The interface does take a bit of getting used to - it requires very firm presses on the screen. At first, I thought that the phone was slow to respond on occasions, but it became clear that I just wasn't pressing hard enough. To help this, I installed Advanced Config and tweaked the screen sensitivity settings. I also installed Diamond Config and enabled the (two) main performance tweaks. Touch-Flo is now a lot easier to use. How much of that is down to the tweaks and how much is just me getting used to it, I don't know. Nevertheless, I can now say that I have no reservations about the interface, and while it's not as immediately easy to use as the iPhone, it's hard to see it presenting many problems for users once they've had the handset for a couple of days and made the tweaks.

On-screen Keyboard

I was worried that the small size of the screen, compared to the iPhone, might make the on-screen keyboard more difficult to use. However, I'm pleased to report that it's not caused me any problems and it's good to have a choice of different keyboards to use in different situations (one, two or three letters per 'key').

Installed Software

The phone came with Google maps, an RSS/podcast reader, Word, Excel, PowerPoint reader, YouTube, Teeter (game), Adobe Reader, as well as the usual Media Player, email, camera apps etc. All work well on the Diamond and have clear, intuitive interfaces.

GPS

I've tested the built-in GPS with Google maps and I'm astounded by the accuracy and performance. It can find 7 satellites even when it's sitting in the cupholder underneath the dashboard in my car!

Battery Life

Battery life does look to be one of the Diamond's few problems. I was used to having to charge my TyTn handset every day, and the Diamond is no different. I've now tried setting the data connection auto-disconnect option in Advanced Config to 1 minute to see if that improves matters.

Browser

The bundled Opera 9.5 browser is far better than the standard Pocket IE, and, sticking with my Apple comparison, is very similar to Safari on the iPhone. The only signiificant difference is that Safari uses a two-fingered pinch gesture to zoom in and out, whereas Opera uses a double-tap. One good feature of Opera that I didn't notice on Safari is that it will re-size text columns to fit the screen width aftee you've zoomed in.

Tweaks

In addition to the performance tweaks I've mentioned above, the (free) GSen application is also a 'must-have'. It uses the in-built accelerometer to enable most applications to switch to landscape mode when the phone is held sideways. By default, only a few applications such as Opera do this.

Summary

Overall, Diamond's small size and Touch-Flo 3D interface solved my two major gripes with my previous WM handset. Although WM6.1 still has major usability issues, TF3D means that you rarely have to experience them. The Diamond is certainly a better handset, but it definitely requires some setting up before it's as usable as the iPhone.

This is a shame, because the tweaks and something like the GSen application could have been included from the start by HTC. It's only thanks to the developers on this forum that I've been able to see the full potential of the Diamond.