While the official announcement wasn’t supposed to cross the wires till next week, the Wall Street Journal beat Sprint to the punch by reviewing the HTC Touch Diamond, a Windows Mobile smart phone with a touch screen and a new, 3-D interface. . There are a number of differences between the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond and the unlocked version. First, it sports a purple/burgundy backplate to add more flash to an already sexy phone. The smartphone is also a smidge thicker and heavier at 4 inches tall by 2 inches wide by 0.6 inch deep and 4.1 ounces, but keeps the same 2.8-inch, 262,000-color TFT touch screen. The Touch Diamond with a 2.8-inch high-res VGA screen, it puts a cuddly interface of large icons over Windows Mobile’s PDA-style home screen. TouchFlo 3D isn’t just a home screen, either; HTC and Sprint have written a custom YouTube application, a customized version of the Opera Web browser, and a customized media player to try to make Windows Mobile more palatable to consumers. The device is designed to showcase Sprint’s EVDO Rev. A network by providing access to the streaming live Sprint TV, Sprint Radio, downloadable music store and YouTube. The phone also comes with Sprint Navigation for GPS navigation; Handmark’s Pocket Express news, weather, and information app; and all the usual Windows Mobile solutions, including Microsoft Office Mobile and Outlook Mobile. The phone has 4GB of on-board memory, but no memory card slot. PC Magazine is now reporting that it’ll be available on September 14 for $249.99 on a two-year contract after $100 rebate, a sum that would put it squarely in the “average” category for on-contract smartphone pricing in these parts.
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