New HTC Touch Diamond

HTC today has announced HTC Touch Diamond, their latest smartphone and an attempt by the company to wrest back the mobile internet crown from Apple’s iPhone. Running on Windows Mobile 6.1 on a VGA touchscreen, HTC have developed a new, three-dimensional version of their GUI overlay, called TouchFLO 3D.Â
This offers full homescreen access to all the applications and device status, as well as CoverFlow-style media browsing and rich icon animation.
In a demonstration, HTC execs showed the browser zooming and reflowing text with a simple tap, as well as manually controlling the zoom level with the touch-sensitive scroll wheel (that doubles as the D-pad). The Touch Diamond also features an accelerometer such as found in the iPhone, which can recognise which way up the handset is being held and orient the screen accordingly.
The company is calling the HTC Touch Diamond with “Usable Mobile Internet” device. It also has a custom version of YouTube, which execs described as “the best mobile YouTube experience”; Apple aren’t going to like that. The HTC Touch Diamond also has 7.2Mbps HSDPA and HSUPA for super-fast uploads and downloads.
The handset will be launched in Europe and Asia in June, with the rest of the world later on in 2008. No prices have been revealed.