HTC Touch Diamond

Connectivity
The phone supports Wi-Fi and advanced GPRS. Having Wi-Fi is a welcome change – it makes life a lot easier, what with custom installation kits costing anywhere from 2-3K for your home.

If you don’t like the native Internet Explorer, you can use Opera Mini instead, which comes bundled with the phone. As for connectivity, I will reduce half a point because the company still hasn’t made life any easier for non-supported providers like BPL. It natively supports Vodafone and Airtel, and will pull the correct GPRS/EDGE settings automatically. For the rest, even manually entering the settings is a bi*ch. A big negative!

Battery
After considering all these new features, it’s disheartening to learn that the phone's battery life is not adequate. Of course, if you are a heavy-duty power user, I would recommend that you carry a charger with you, or buy another for office use. The phone can be charged through the USB too, though it takes a lot more time.

The phone looks and feels good, and the new TouchFLO is impressive. Some serious effort has gone into making the handset more user-friendly, and there's a better-looking UI to boot. Inclusion of Wi-Fi is a plus, and the decent 3.2 MP autofocus camera is another highlight.

At Rs 27,500, HTC Touch Diamond is really expensive. Still, considering the great looks and features on offer, I'd say it's worth the price.

Specs