We first heard about the HTC Touch Diamond coming to Sprint even before the device was officially announced by HTC back in May. Since then, the HTC Diamond has seen it’s "global release" to the whole planet except for the U.S. There have been a few dates thrown out for it’s release date on Sprint, but this time the Wall Street Journal seems to have a real source. According to the WSJ and their recent review of Sprint’s HTC Touch Diamond, the device will be launching on the Sprint network on September 14 for $249 with a two year contract and $100 mail in rebate. The Diamond slips in quite nicely into their Windows Mobile phone lineup and as we all know will be fallowed by the HTC Touch Pro by the end of the year.
Katherine Boehret’s WSJ review was not too friendly. She picked apart the Diamond for flaws that were based on the Windows Mobile OS and spent very little time highlighting the TouchFLO 3D interface. It’s true that TouchFLO 3D does not completely fix the underlining problems of the OS. But she goes on to say
"Yet like the iPhone, it relies solely on an on-screen keyboard for all text entries. Even with the Diamond’s stylus, the keyboard felt small and cramped. Using just your fingertips was next to impossible."
I think it’s a bit amusing that she forgets to mention that the Diamond has nearly a half dozen text entry method based upon user preferences. She then goes on to compare the iPhone’s web browsing with the Diamonds, but it sounds like she’s using IE rather than Opera.
