HTC Touch Diamond2 photos

Announced at GSMA 2009, the HTC Touch Diamond2 is the successor to the HTC Touch Diamond and includes a number of design and feature enhancements.

There have been no official announcements about the U.S. availability of the HTC Touch Diamond2, or which carrier will pick up the Windows Mobile smartphone. You can purchase it unlocked for $600, but we'd wait for a U.S. 3G version.

The Touch Diamond2 has quite a sophisticated design and looks more grown-up than its predecessor with its brushed-metal face.

The Touch Diamond2 is ever so slightly bigger and heavier than its predecessor, at 4.25 inches high by 2.09 inches wide by 0.54 inch thick and 4.15 ounces. However, the smartphone has a fairly slim profile so you should be able to slip it into a pants pocket.

The HTC Touch Diamond2 is smaller than other touch-screen smartphones like the Samsung Omnia.

The back is a bit slick since HTC decided to go with a simple, flat, plastic battery cover unlike the various versions of the Touch Diamond, which either had a geometric backing or soft-touch finish.

The Touch Diamond2's WVGA display is the real attention grabber. It's big and sharp at 3.2 inches and 480x800 pixels. Images and text pop with color and clarity, and the touch screen is quite responsive. It also has a built-in accelerometer.

Below the display, there are four navigation controls: Talk and End/Home keys, Start menu shortcut, and a back button. There's also a new touch-sensitive zoom bar that lets you zoom in and out of Web pages, pictures, messages, and documents.

The Touch Diamond2 offers an onscreen QWERTY keyboard, including a landscape keyboard. The keys provide haptic feedback when touched but we found the buttons a bit small.

The Touch Diamond2 gets an upgrade in the camera department from 3.2 megapixels to 5 megapixels.

Despite the lack of a dedicated capture key and some slight lag, the Touch Diamond2's camera took sharp pictures with accurate colors.