Bye bye Diamond

[Guest Cowie]

I've never seen the fascination with Macs, they have always seemed more form over function. Something that an architect’s office or a graphical design department might use purely because they were Macs. I saw the iPhone in the same light..... until I used one last week. One of my customers had one and handed it to me to call their other office. Looking up a number and dialling it was a lot slicker and easier than I expected and the call quality was excellent, though I was still sceptical regarding the usability.

This started me thinking. I had an O2 contract that was due for renewal and considered getting an iPhone 3G to give it a trial – if I didn’t get on with it, the wife would no doubt like it. I’d be losing MMS (I think I’ve only ever sent three or four in my mobile lifetime) and tethering (which has been handy a couple of times in the past year). Then last week I needed to phone a client quickly whilst I was out and about but the damn Diamond refused to dial. I had to stop and perform a reset before it would let me dial the ruddy number. Then the sodding battery expired. I seriously considered going back to my TyTN II (I’m using Dutty’s stable 1.6 Diamond ROM in case anyone thinks I’m using the stock ROM).

So, I got the iPhone 3G. Charged it up. Installed iTunes and updated the firmware to 2.0.2 so that I could sync to my Exchange Server. Everything worked flawlessly first time.

1. It just works. No tweaking required. I did like fettling my WinMo devices in the early days and did flash ROMs on a fairly regular basis. When I started to get busy with my business however, the fine tuning became more of a hindrance.

2. It’s responsive. You click an icon and it does something, quickly. There’s no waiting around or wondering if you pressed hard enough or pressed the wrong part of the screen.

3. The battery life is absolutely amazing (well, it is now the 2.1 firmware is on)! No kidding. It’s using 3G and has GPS set to come on automatically when required. After a full charge this morning, three or four voice calls, several texts and some browsing the charge indicator is still showing full! My Diamond was also fully charged this morning, my wife has made two short calls, sent a couple of texts and done some quick browsing and it’s showing about 20% charge. It had to go back on the charger in case she needed it tonight and she’s thinking about going back to her Vario III.

The iPhone is a phone first and a PDA second so I know that I can’t directly compare it with the Diamond. Having said that, and this is the deciding factor for me, I can do everything on the iPhone that I needed to do on my Diamond – record client timesheets, email and calendar appointments sync to Exchange Server, VNC and VPN to remote clients and make and receive calls.

As I said at the start, I’m not an Apple fan. I still think that WinMo has the potential to be so much better than it is but it fails on usability and network support. The iPhone 3G was a flawed product and initially fell well short of expectation. However Apple released a series of firmware ‘updates’ that fixes many of the problems. I have just updated to the latest 2.1 firmware (iTunes backed everything up, applied the update and restored my settings for me) and I don’t have to worry about O2 not honouring the warranty. It just seems wrong that you have to go down the route of an unofficial ROM if you want a more stable, responsive Windows device.

I’ve just sold my TyTN II on ebay. If the wife goes back to her Vario III the Diamond will be joining it shortly. I hope Windows Pro / Mobile 7 can compete with the likes of Google and Apple but fear that it will be too little too late.

All the best.

[Guest Alkali]

. I hope Windows Pro / Mobile 7 can compete with the likes of Google and Apple but fear that it will be too little too late.

All the best.

Cowie,not in this life or the next! I own both the iphone and the Diamond.

To start with i have no permenant friend or enemy.The wonderful UI of the iphone beats any windows mobile hands down.What makes me wonder is the poor materials use in making almost all windows mobile as compared to the silck iphone, take for example the Diamond plastic make that resembles my 3yr old's toy 2.The Safari browser alone is no march to any you can find from windows 5,6,6.1 or even the much talked about 7.

Finally, all these are basically phones and then something else and even a blind man can see that making calls are much nicer on an iphone than any of the so called windows mobiles.

And for the life of me, can't these windows makers make complete overwhole of the Damn Windows to give us something else cause' when you look carefully,differences between 6 or 6.1 are so little to amaze a wise guy like you and me.

HTC we are tired and tired and tired,give us something else.Your touch flo f----.

[Guest SSR]

I would have gone the iPhone route, if it weren't the case that it was missing some apps that I needed, and the lack of decent storage space is pretty much a deal breaker also.

As it stands I'm really happy with my Diamond. It's the best phone I've owned, a true pocket phone, and I don't have any battery issues.

[Guest Alkali]

I would have gone the iPhone route, if it weren't the case that it was missing some apps that I needed, and the lack of decent storage space is pretty much a deal breaker also.

As it stands I'm really happy with my Diamond. It's the best phone I've owned, a true pocket phone, and I don't have any battery issues.

Come on SSR,talking about storage, the Diamond has only 4GB as comparared to my iphone's 16Gb.Enough space to store my wife if need be ;)

[Guest mcwarre]

Enough space to store my wife if need be :wacko:

Got any [ahem] videos of her then? ;)

[Guest dr_nick]

i have to agree te iphone is lovely to use...

but it doesnt quite do ENOUGH. if only it had :

medical sftware from skyscape (soon to come methks)

cut'n'paste

a2dp

i'd defo be getting one (probably)

[Guest jimbouk]

All the comparisons are pretty useless really.

The Iphone is twice te size of the diamond and is aimed at a different market.

[Guest Alkali]

All the comparisons are pretty useless really.

The Iphone is twice te size of the diamond and is aimed at a different market.

Look who is talking.A phone is a phone and a market is market and we buy and use them any how.They do not come with labels"KEEP OFF" do they dear Jim?

[Guest Alkali]

Got any [ahem] videos of her then? ;)

Check YouTube and please do not say i told you :wacko:

[Guest Cowie]

All the comparisons are pretty useless really.

The Iphone is twice te size of the diamond and is aimed at a different market.

It depends on what your requirements are. My requirements put both handsets in the same market where the iPhone wins hands down. There's quite a large cross-over between the two where they share the same functionality, but each also has unique additional functionality which leads to some diversity.

The Diamond is far more flexible than the iPhone but is let down by the operating system. The Diamond is smaller than the iPhone but this compromises the battery size and the trade-off doesn't work for me.

The size of the iPhone isn't an issue to me - it still easily fits in my shirt pocket in a leather case. The fact that it's as slippery as a wet bar of soap when out of the case is a different matter.

I've just had the 20% battery warning on my iPhone since taking it off charge yesterday morning. It has been constantly powered up on 3G for the past 39 hours (made five or six calls, push email on, spent an hour on WiFi downloading apps from the AppStore and played around on various applications for at least a couple of hours + some web browsing).

[Guest Cowie]

i have to agree te iphone is lovely to use...

but it doesnt quite do ENOUGH. if only it had :

medical sftware from skyscape (soon to come methks)

cut'n'paste

a2dp

i'd defo be getting one (probably)

I do miss the Skyscape BNF, but as you imply, I expect it will only be a matter of time.

Cut and paste - I agree. Maybe in 2.1.1?

A2DP - there's a way round it by using a Bluetooth adaptor. There shouldn't have to be but until Apple relax their control on the Bluetooth stack it's the only way. The also block the use of Bluetooth for file transfer.

There's also no-turn-by-turn GPS app like TomTom either (yet). This isn't an issue for me as I already have GPS in the car but can see that it would put some people off. The in-built Google Maps works brilliantly and the GPS gets a fix very quickly. And unlike my Diamond, you don't need to use oven gloves to hold the handset when GPS has been on for some time.

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

One of the biggest limiting factors for the success of the iPhone I believe is that it's on 02. Had it been on T-Mo, then Id probably have snapped one up too. Problem is, that my work phone is on 02, but I have bugger all signal, and get voicemail every so often.

So why should I buy a phone I cannot use due to poor network!

[Guest Cowie]

So why should I buy a phone I cannot use due to poor network!

You're right, you shouldn't. Luckily I'd used an O2 contract for a few years and have pretty good coverage in the places that I use the phone. I've also got T-Mobile and Orange contracts and get good coverage on those but have ditched Vodafone as I don't get a good signal with them. If the iPhone had only been offered by Vodafone, then I wouldn't have gone down that route.

You can of course jailbreak the iPhone and use whichever service provider you like but it's a faff and not without some risk - flashing unofficial ROMs was one of the reasons that I went with the iPhone in the first place! But yes, it would be much better if multiple carriers were able to provide the iPhone.

[Guest SSR]

Come on SSR,talking about storage, the Diamond has only 4GB as comparared to my iphone's 16Gb.Enough space to store my wife if need be ;)

I'm not using the Diamond as an iPod replacement as well though. I'm hoping third time's a charm with the iPhone...