Bloggers stress test the HTC Touch Diamond

- Sheylara

So, I think bloggers are a really scary breed of new media journalists. Since they don’t answer to anyone but themselves, they can afford to display higher than normal levels of curiosity and skepticism.

Also, without the need to rush back to the office to file a story, they can afford to hang around after an event to badger the product specialist.

Here’s what happens when you invite bloggers to your event.

Other things that happen include excessive camwhoring and badly-taken photographs.

Examples of camwhoring:

[HOW!]
From left: DK, Jayden, Nadnut (front), Sabrina (back), Sheylara, Claudia, Precious

[Black is the new black]
Surfing to Sheylara.com on the HTC Touch Diamond

[Lightning never strikes on the same spot]
Jayden was really pleased with the phone

Examples of badly-taken photographs:

[She forgot her lines]
The host of the event read off cue-cards the whole time

[It was like magnet]
The HTC Touch Diamond tagline: Not too big, not too small

[Crowds scare me]
The talk was held in a very ostentatious ballroom

Examples of badly-taken camwhoring photographs:

[It was like magnet]
Sheylara and Precious hang out in the toilet

[What?]
Sheylara and Precious enjoy a lipstick break

Sidetrack a bit.

Some guys have asked why women like to take photos in the toilet.

That’s the wrong question.

The right question should be: Why do women like to take photos anywhere?

To which the answer is: Do women need a reason to do anything?

End of sidetrack.

I guess I should talk about the phone but I’m really tired now, so I’ll just do the point-form thingy.

[Sparkling HTC Touch Diamond]

What I like about the HTC Touch Diamond

  • At the outset, HTC is already pretty well-known for producing reliable and function-rich PDA phones.
  • It looks really sleek, with a glossy piano black surface and, as the tagline proclaims, is “not too big, not too small”.
  • It runs on HSDPA for Internet connectivity and is the fastest you can get on mobile phones right now. I tried it. It’s really fast.
  • The interface is kinda like the iPhone. You can use your finger or the attached stylus to grab stuff on/off the screen.
  • It has a graphics processor! Which means watching videos on this phone is really sweet.
  • When surfing the net, you can zoom in to read passages of text and the phone automatically wraps the text for you so you don’t have to scroll left-right!! And the zooming is instantaneous, no waiting for the browser to reload the page.
  • It doesn’t allow external memory but has 4GB of storage, which I think is enough.
  • When you’re in a phone conversation and pull out your stylus, the phone automatically displays a notepad so you can take notes.
  • It has a built-in Google Maps GPS program so you will never need to get lost again!

[Maps!]
A live demo of the phone’s Internet connectivity

What I don’t like about the HTC Touch Diamond

  • The interface is kinda sluggish, with a 1-2 second delay, when you navigate the touch screen with your fingers. That problem seems to be minimised when you use the stylus, though.
  • HTC claims that it has an intuitive interface that mimics tasks you do daily so you won’t need to read a menu to learn how to use the phone. But I wouldn’t say it’s immediately intuitive. Like, when I wanted to scroll through the phone book to watch the nifty animation, I ended up calling some guy, instead. Then I couldn’t figure out how to stop the call and go back to the phone book.
  • It’s too expensive at $1098.

Well, in a nutshell, if I were really rich, I would definitely get it. (Wouldn’t we all?) The phone will be available for purchase in June this year.

I wonder if I can get HTC to sponsor me one! ;)

But I really enjoy attending media events because I get, if not free phones, then free food.

[Food]
Farinelli couldn’t wait to dig into the food

[Fooder]

[Foodest]

There was actually a lot more food than this, but I was really, really hungry and decided to neglect my duties as a sometimes food blogger and just start eating.

Feed the hungry blogger!

Please invite me to more of such events because I’m really hungry.

lol.

After the event, some of us went on a bus field trip.

[Happy campers]

[Lone rangers]

I shan’t tell you where we went!

lol.

20 thoughts on “Bloggers stress test the HTC Touch Diamond”

  2. Pingback: Claud Continues To Talk » Blog Archive » Ditch iPhone! I want the HTC Touch Diamond!
  3. Avatar

    Hmmmm: “they can afford to display higher than normal levels of curiosity and skepticism.”

    They might be able to, but I doubt that they do. While bloggers may not be beholden to advertisers (as most media outlets are) they are more likely to be swayed by freebies and goodies, since they don’t have (necessarily) the ethical considerations of real journalists…

    I should add: Present company (blogger Sheylara) excepted, of course.

  4. Avatar

    Honestly, without sounding like a fanboy, I would say that Apple has this market sewn up. The iPhone is just too slick for competitors at the moment. There’s no lag, it is really, really user-friendly. HTC has a lot of work to do to catch up…

  5. Avatar

    I seem to be doing a lot of comments for this one, but I keep noticing new things…

    WTF is it with camwhoring in the toilet??? I mean I can think of many, many better places to take pictures…

  7. Avatar

    claudia: I haven’t forgotten! I’m waiting eagerly for you to organise it! :P

    Jesta: Well, you are very right, although I’m not sure how this point is relevant to what I’m saying. But it does fall into the category of general discussions revolving around the differences between traditional journalists and blogger journalists. It’s a very interesting topic, but is something I don’t feel entirely ready to tackle head-on at this point of time. :P

    And you totally sound like a fanboy. But I’m not surprised. Haha.

    As for camwhoring, what’s so bad about the toilet? It has a big mirror, it has tastefully designed surroundings, it has nice ambient lighting which makes my picture look blur but otherwise gives it that warm, romantic feeling…

    Lycansberg: Because iPhone is still on EDGE while the HTC is on HSDPA. I guess iPhone will be upgrading to HSDPA eventually, but it hasn’t happened yet, so HTC still wins. :P Also, there are features that are useful in the HTC which aren’t in the iPhone (like the text wrapping). I guess it’s a matter of personal choice. Depends on what you want to use your PDA phone primarily for.

  8. Avatar

    Why am I always photographed with food? :/

    Next time I wait until you all take pics of the food then start taking them. If not bad rep sia, as if my moobs not notorious enough…

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  18. Avatar

    binary: I think that the reason is simply that she has good contacts… and a VERY popular blog. Go figure!

  19. Avatar

    Hey there!

    Thanks for attending the HTC Touch Diamond launch. Was really fun having you guys there. :)

    Great video by the way. Wish I was there to witness the throwing of the phone around!

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