Just Returned my Diamond....

[boe]

Thanks - maybe it is because I use push I'm seeing the issue although my Touch wasn't good on battery with push enabled it sure beat the hell out of my Diamond.

[labens]

I loaded TF2D on my Touch the day I recieved my Diamond and didn't activate the Diamond for a week. I even copied Opera 9 onto the Touch, so the look and feel was very much like the Diamond. The responsiveness of the Touch was fantastic. All my apps worked well and I seldom had to reset the device. Physically, the rounded corners of the Touch lets it sit in a pocket much more comfortably than the Diamond. It's more comfortable in the hand as well.

The only compelling reason to activate the Diamond was the VGA screen and WiFi. I wanted a device that I could navigate my brokerage account sites from and have more data on the screen. True, the fonts can be so small at times you go blind, but I'm used to this from my UMPC. Which brings me back to why I wanted tne Diamond, WiFi. I've been using wmWiFiRouter on my old PPC6700 to connect my UMPC and work laptop to the internet when I want to work outside the house/office. Previously, my VPN software would not work over Bluetooth/PAN. The Diamond seems to fit the bill for what I want in a single phone.

Now that I've used the Diamond for a few weeks, I'm really debating sending it back. The problem is, I still carry the PPC6700 to work remotely because I feel safer tethering with it. It's probably a phylosophical question as to whether using the 6700 to tether is any more right or wrong than hacking the Diamond to tether undetecked, but I do feel less wrong.

Beyond that, I find many flaws with the Diamond that I don't have with the Touch. I've got the same software installed on both, and it seems buggy on the Diamond.

- Responsiveness of TF3D is slow. I got spoiled with how snappy TF2D was on the Touch. I could load TF2D on the Diamond, but that would be like loading Windows XP on your new laptop when you like the Glass features of Vista and your old laptop runs XP just fine.
- The Diamond locks up occassionally for no appearent reeason.
- It locks up frequently when I try to download a file through PIE.
- Often when it locks up, a soft reset will not suffice. I have to remove the battery for a few second before it will succesfully boot and load TF3D.
- Having to remove the cover to reset is really annoying, especially with the frequency it is needed.
- WiFi does not always connect. Sometimes I have to soft reset first.
- I use QuickMenu to switch from one app to another and I find TF3D likes to come to the front frequently, requiring me to have to repeat my actions.
- If the ringer is also set to vibrate, the caller can hear a buzz when you answer the phone. I've never had this "feature" on any other phone/PDA and get a lot of complaints.
- If I have the phone in my right pants pocket and my bluetooth headest on my left ear, the reception starts to cut out. Every other phone/PDA works fine 20 feet away with the same headset.
- The lack of microSD slot makes taking a few movies along for the plane ride a bit challenging. I used to just pop it on a different card. Now I need to decide which music to delete. Argh.
- Same goes for stand alone GPS software, can't carry extra maps on another card, have to download them instead.
- Direction keys (d-pad) is poor.
- Volume up/down buttons are so flush with the unit they are difficult to find by touch alone sometimes. Though I do prefer buttons to the slider on the Touch.
- No dedicated camera button. I used to get annoyed when I accidentally launched the camera on the Touch or PPC6700, but at least I could launch the camera when I needed it.
- EVDO drops to 1x frequently.
- Phone reception is not as strong as the Touch. I had difficulty making phone calls at my local Taget, which I know to be the most difficult place to get a signal of the places I am likely to go locally.

So perhaps most of my complaints about the Diamond are software related and can be fixed. I think some of them go away by turning off TF3D. But I'm not sure I want to wait it out. I'm leaning heavily toward returning it for a refund and sticking with the Touch, which has proven reliable. I'll miss the VGA resolution and viewability from any angle the most.

[groovdafied]

Originally Posted by chappy

No, it doesn't.

i was going to say the same thing, plus the comment bout low memory? 4 Gigs is not endless storage, but is quite a bit of memory. I don't know, I respect the TC's opinions, but to me it sounds like he/she doesn't know much about the diamond if he/she feels that it's not much of an upgrade between the diamond and basic Touch.

It's almost saying that my paper bag has better reception then my mogul phone.

[Success100]

Originally Posted by groovdafied

i was going to say the same thing, plus the comment bout low memory? 4 Gigs is not endless storage, but is quite a bit of memory. I don't know, I respect the TC's opinions, but to me it sounds like he/she doesn't know much about the diamond if he/she feels that it's not much of an upgrade between the diamond and basic Touch.

It's almost saying that my paper bag has better reception then my mogul phone.

i agree completely. The diamond is everything the touch was plus steroids and growth hormones. Ive used both, currently using the diamond, and its worth the upgrade just for VGA

[cornelious2]

Not to sound like a broken record here, but don't you all remember how glitchy and laggy the touch and the mogul were when they just came out? you gotta compare apples to apples here. if your upset about things like the battery, glitches, lag, etc. just give it a couple months and the latest greatest custom rom will rock your worlds just like how no2chems rocks the mogul.

[boe]

Cornelious - I understand what you are saying but I have to say isn't it about time HTC and SPrint actually learned from their mistakes in the past - e.g. Mogul Bluetooth fiasco and started testing and fixing things before they release them. I'm not expecting perfection but the BT and battery issues are not things easy to miss in a day or even hour of testing.

[cornelious2]

Originally Posted by boe

Cornelious - I understand what you are saying but I have to say isn't it about time HTC and SPrint actually learned from their mistakes in the past - e.g. Mogul Bluetooth fiasco and started testing and fixing things before they release them. I'm not expecting perfection but the BT and battery issues are not things easy to miss in a day or even hour of testing.

Yea I agree with you 100% there, but all the people immediately jumping ship and going back to their old phones is kinda crazy. honestly, it is ridiculous that HTC releases these phones in such a glitchy state, but lets be honest here. Are you going to be happy as a consumer to only get a phone every 3 years? I go into getting any bleeding edge electronic device considering it basically the final beta.

As a programmer you would not believe how quickly my end users find problems in apps that I wouldn't even consider thinking about. Also they test in a perfect environment with people that have lists of what to test and have the mindset to not test outside that realm. Yes it sucks, but thats how pretty much everything works. look at the xbox360 or the ps3 or first gen plasma tv's, early DSL, first gen web apps, poweruser video cards, etc. As much as the early glitches really do suck, its part of the lifecycle of the product. If you can't handle that make sure you wait at least 6 months before jumping into a product.

Now compound the fact that people are installing 3rd party apps that were designed for last year (or 5 years ago for that matter) phones/pdas. Even jumping from 95 to 98 caused a myrid of compatibility issues. My question for all the people with issues with the battery or whatnot is, how many of you are runing the phone stock with just applications that were built for the phone and have not had a revision in over a week. m\My diamond should hit my apartment around noon. soon we shall see if I am just the jackass on a rant

[boe]

Oh - sure - I expect glitches - things like the calculator can't calculate 22/7*15-3+7 correctly or the sprint store can't download a particular song or even on power you set it for 5 minutes and it stays on for 8 - those are things I wouldn't be surprised if they missed

Things I would think any beta tester with opposable thumbs (or at least without a pronounced prehensile tail) should catch-
1 Bluetooth not working properly
2 Bad battery life
3 The number 0 and 7 not being on the dial pad for placing calls -not saying that is an issue but it is no less significant than the two listed before it.

[cornelious2]

well my wife just called and said the phone came in so I will check it out specifically. as for the BT issue, maybe they just test it with different devices? ill run the full gammot and then some when I get home. (hard to focus on work now haha)

[boe]

eI think a reasonable BT test would be two BT units from
Jabra
jawbone
motorola
plantronics
and maybe a couple of others but since those are the most popular I would say those would be a good place to start.

I have the 950 and it works fine with the touch and the mogul if it is patched as well as the motorola Q, several bb units, the centro, the palm 750 just not the diamond so far.
I know someone with a motorola complaining about static with theirs and the diamond (not sure which motorola they have)
One of my clients wants me to figure out why they have static with their diamond and a jawbone (version1).

Maybe there were good batches and defective batches of the Diamond released. I'll admit I'm tempted to return mine and ask for another to see if my crappy battery life and lousy BT are just a fluke but with the number of other people reporting the same issue I tend to think my chances of getting a properly working one are slim.