New HTC Touch Diamond mobile phone

diamonds

got a Touch in Dec 07 apart from no 3G its fabbo, its my TOM TOM dedicated device with a Orange Data Plan £0 spend per month £1MB plan that I got with my Icon USB that cost £30, just swapped the sim

Cavey

tigerboo wrote: »

I've been looking at built in GPS HTC phones, as I like the idea of it doubling up as a SAT NAV.

Does the Orange White Touch have this?

It's not built in. Pretty much just the Kaiser/Stellar/TyTN II/etc..., Touch Diamond and Orbit 2 have it. GPS has basically only been enabled in the last generation of HTC phones.

It can, however, use an external bluetooth GPS device (cost about £50 plus software).

tigerboo

I'm assuming then that you got an additional GPS device as mentioned by Cavey then Diamonds?

Cavey wrote: »

It's not built in. Pretty much just the Kaiser/Stellar/TyTN II/etc..., Touch Diamond and Orbit 2 have it. GPS has basically only been enabled in the last generation of HTC phones.

It can, however, use an external bluetooth GPS device (cost about £50 plus software).

Cheers Cavey. Is there a model you would reccomend? A mate of mine has the M700 which he uses as a PDA, Phone, and Sat Nav. I'm really looking for the same functionality...is this model a decent buy (ebay have them at about £150-£200 ish).

plob

otherwise know as the htc p3600, very functional phone and highly recommended. also htc touch cruise is a nice phone with everything your after i.e. sat nav

tigerboo

plob wrote: »

otherwise know as the htc p3600, very functional phone and highly recommended. also htc touch cruise is a nice phone with everything your after i.e. sat nav

Yeah, he describes it as being very good...the only that puts me off is when he went to show me it, it had turned off and he couldn't get it to turn back on! :rolleyes:

It still wasn't working by the end of today...not a great advertisement!

Cavey

tigerboo wrote: »

Yeah, he describes it as being very good...the only that puts me off is when he went to show me it, it had turned off and he couldn't get it to turn back on! :rolleyes:

It still wasn't working by the end of today...not a great advertisement!

There is an issue known as "Sleep of death". Current theory is it is something to do with not terminating data connections before the phone goes to sleep. Apparently Windows 6.1 solves this, but not every device has it available yet.

Watch out for different naming conventions. If you look at the xda-developers wiki you can find pages on individual models. The HTC P3600 is the model known as "Trinity". It is also sold as.....

HTC P3600 / P3600i
Dopod D810 / CHT9100 / CHT9110
Orange SPV M700
Vodafone VPA Compact GPS
SFR S300+
Swisscom XPA v1510

so some people can endorse different products without knowing In each case the hardware will be practically identical (most differences are either cosmetic, localisations or software, but exceptions do exist).

It also gets confusing because there are similarly named devices that are essentially different. The Touch ("Elf" and "Elfin"), Touch CDMA ("Vogue"), Touch Dual (which has two identically named variants, "Neon" and "Niki"), Touch Pro ("Raphael"), Touch Cruise ("Polaris") and Touch Diamond ("Diamond") are all different devices, but some people still refer to them as a Touch. These are also just the HTC "Touch" devices, as there is another named Touch which is made by HTC but sold by someone else. Needless to say, it's a mess which is why XDA-developers use the engineering model name.

Sooooo, in answer to your question, the M700 (Trinity) is a fair phone, but the release of the Diamond should push prices down, so give it a month/6-weeks. It runs on the Samsung processor, which means it should not suffer from the driver issues (I think the URL would be https://www.htcclassaction.org ) that are causing geeks to swear at HTC, but it doesn't have the raw horsepower and ends up mostly comparable except w.r.t. graphics.

At the end of the day you need to decide what you want it for and what makes you carry it. I have a stellar which has the QWERTY keyboard, but then I use it to SSH into linux boxes and a keyboard is helpful for using a command line or just quickly typing text. Yes it is big and most people describe it as a brick, but it's features make it useful enough to carry. If it just did phone and SMS and was that size, I probably wouldn't carry it (or would be quickly moving to a different phone).

What do you use your phone for now? What do you want to us your phone for? What do you currently have and how big is it? How do you transport/carry it?

I hope you found this post useful and not too rambling.

diamonds

tigerboo wrote: »

I'm assuming then that you got an additional GPS device as mentioned by Cavey then Diamonds?



Cheers Cavey. Is there a model you would reccomend? A mate of mine has the M700 which he uses as a PDA, Phone, and Sat Nav. I'm really looking for the same functionality...is this model a decent buy (ebay have them at about £150-£200 ish).

yip my left over tom tom gps from my HP Ipaq days works great as does the Navman I bought off a fellow MSE'r ( thanks ! ) for my dad, i swapped the old man as Tom Tom is rechargeable only & didnt last me but for my limited dads travels its perfect
the Navman is great with removable batteries I put a set of rechargables in mine so while is plugged in the alternator is charging

cheaper than replacing standard batteries, better waste management after 1000 charges they get binned & no excess carbon emissions from recharging at home - the cars moving anyway ! 3 good reasons to buy a gps unit with replaceable standard batteries its not win/win situation its win/win/win ! LOL

keep a spare set rechargables in glove box&laptop bag so if im on foot I can still use it with my mobile looking for an address in areas/streets unknown to me, mobile is too small a screen for Tom Tom but TOUCH is perfect aswell as for email attatchments my Nokia cant open the TOUCH is a great back up for that for me :T

I want a front slider non qwerty keypad HTC with a 5 megapixel camera, full HSPDA up & down, good screen size but small enough to put in my pocket ( similar to the upcoming Nokia N96 ) & I wil be back on HTC as main phone, might source a I-phone 3g till HTC have a phone for me, or Blackberry 8120 ( is it 3G ? ) if anyone can confirm they are any good with this being a smartphone thread ? sizewise the 8120 a bit big but I need a Orange Unique compatiable mobile and the Blackberry 8320 & 8820 look too wide !

Ther perfect mobile to suit my needs/wants is worse than finding the ALMOST perfect other half ! Cant a bloke just get one instead of none ?
Wish Nokia etc etc could all come up with a PC thing...load windows or linux or whatever to your device....the operating system that meets your needs with the handset that meets your needs its always a compromise...well I dont want to any more! lol

tigerboo

Some really good advice here people, thanks! :money:

Cavey wrote: »

What do you use your phone for now? What do you want to us your phone for? What do you currently have and how big is it? How do you transport/carry it?

I hope you found this post useful and not too rambling.

I've currently got a Motoraolla Razor, and it's poo! But I also carry about a Palm PDA which has seen better days. So to combine the phone (which I use very little) with the PDA would be great. The reason I'm thinking of the HTC Trinity, is that I'm also hiking in Scotland and Eastern Europe in the summer, and so to have Sat Nav would give me a little reassurance if I were lost...it would be very handy in my car on a regular basis too.

Do you think £200 is reasonable for a new Trinity...and then £18 for an 8GB Mini SD (I've checked and it does take).

bodybox

I used to have one of these and they're a fantastic phone. About 6 months ago, Orange were offering them at £129.99 (http://www.modaco.com/content/pocket-pc-professional-news/264922/sim-free-reconditioned-orange-spv-m700-htc-trinity-129-99-with-free-phone/) reconditioned although £200 for a new unit is unlikely. I think you're probably going to have to pay about £320 for a new unlocked (SIM free) Trinity at the moment.

Would probably work out cheaper to wait (3-6 weeks is my guess) for the HTC Touch Diamond and get it with a contract, that way you spread the cost and have talktime/SMS/data included. You could probably get the handset free on a £30p/m if you shop around (although likely to be an 18 month contract).

For what it's worth, I've been using HTC phones for about 4 years now and have never had a problem with them.

Cavey

tigerboo wrote: »

I've currently got a Motoraolla Razor, and it's poo! But I also carry about a Palm PDA which has seen better days. So to combine the phone (which I use very little) with the PDA would be great. The reason I'm thinking of the HTC Trinity, is that I'm also hiking in Scotland and Eastern Europe in the summer, and so to have Sat Nav would give me a little reassurance if I were lost...it would be very handy in my car on a regular basis too.

So you currently use a PDA which is purely touch screen, right? In which case the Trinity and its relatives are probably good for you, I'd find the lack of keyboard annoying.

Note that GPS on these devices is usually navigation based and consists mostly of roads, NOT landmarks or OS maps (and batteries don't run out on a map ). Not perfect, but better than nothing if you have gotten lost.

tigerboo wrote: »

Do you think £200 is reasonable for a new Trinity...and then £18 for an 8GB Mini SD (I've checked and it does take).

If you can get it for £200, brand new, it sounds amazingly good - the Touch was £180 on Orange PAYG less than a month ago! Be aware that if it is running WM5 it needs a little convincing to work with SD cards over 2Gb (they'll be SDHC - Secure Digital High Capacity) cards, but it is possible and shouldn't cost you money.