Fighting the machine

My newest phone is the HTC Touch Diamond, I've been using it for the last 10 days and now have a pretty solid idea of how it works.

http://www.htc.com/www/product/touchdiamond/overview.html

First off the phone looks slick, and for the most parts it performs quite well. The sound quality is average, the interface is very good (if sometimes a bit sluggish) and the features are perfectly adapted for me. I use an exchange server at work and I was able to get it to sync on the 2nd try (my last attempt with a windows phone was random success after attempt #8).

The phone is very versatile and is what I would expect from a windows mobile phone. Packed with programs and features and very easy to learn. No nonsense when it comes to using MP3s as rings (some phones have a problem with that, go figure) and it also opens up the possibility for me to write apps for it.

My biggest down with the phone itself is the battery. If you leave everything running on the phone (Data, Phone, WiFi) then a fully charged battery will usually die within 12-16 hours, sometimes even less. You have to very carefully tweak and monitor what the phone does which becomes a bit of a manual process. Make sure that the camera application isn't running in the background (biggest battery hog) and that WiFi isn't running when you aren't using it.

Otherwise, it's a very nice phone full of possibilities.