HTC Touch Diamond

At an event in London today, HTC announced the Touch Diamond, the company's new flagship phone for 2008. The Touch Diamond has impressive specs and hardware, although the new user interface - TouchFlo 3D - might be the most important feature.

The hardware starts with a flat black slab that's quite thin, but houses impressive features such as HSDPA 7.2, HSUPA, and a VGA display. It's hard not to compare it to the iPhone. The iPhone lacks such fast data, but of course that's rumored to be changing soon. The form factor is roughly the same, though, and it's designed to be used the same way: with your fingers. The screen even rotates automatically just like the iPhone.

The software is where it gets really interesting. It's based on Windows Mobile 6.1, but that's not obvious at first. You can run Windows Mobile applications, of course, but for the most part HTC has gone to great lengths to replace the Windows Mobile menus with their own interface that's both prettier and easier to use.