HTC Touch Diamond (Verizon) Cell Phone Review

The Hardware

Under the screen are the main controls, which are shown in Figure 4. There are four buttons: Home and Back on the top and Send and End on the bottom. While these buttons finished flush to the top, they are not a part of the touch screen. They are actual buttons that can be depressed. In the middle of these buttons is round pad navigational control. Like the touch screen, this pad is very responsive, Just putting your finger over it, will light up the control buttons, even without your needing to press down on the pad. The pad can be used to control much of the phone’s functionality. For instance, you can move your finger in a circular motion to zoom in and out of web pages. You can touch the center button to focus the camera and then press down on the button to take a picture.

Figure 4: The Front controls.

Other than the buttons on the front, there are only two other buttons. The volume rocker on the side, as shown in Figure 5, and the power on/off button on the top, as shown in Figure 6. Holding the power button down will turn the device on and off. Pressing it without holding it down will  toggle the standby mode on and off. The hole for the speaker can also be seen on the top of the phone.

Figure 5: The side of the Diamond.

Figure 6: The top of the Diamond.

The bottom of the phone, shown in Figure 7, has a mini USB multi function port that acts as the headset jack, charger, and the data port. We were disappointed that there was no standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. The phone does come with an adapter which can handle a standard set of 3.5 mm headphones as well as 2.5 mm headphones. As you can see in Figure 8, the adapter is quite cumbersome. This will be a big drawback for those who like to use their phone like an MP3 player.

Figure 7: The bottom of the phone.

Figure 8: Diamond with audio adapter.