My brother and I are gadget geeks. He only had the recenlty released HTC Diamond for less than 30 days before he jumped ship and swam for AT&T with their promise of the iPhone 3G on the other side.
I, on the other hand, waited paitently for the HTC Touch Pro to come out, which is basically the same as the Diamond, except that it comes with a slide-out keyboard.

Unboxing
There are many Internet videos on the unboxing process of the HTC Touch Pro, much like the Diamond. They are both the most anticipated Windows Mobile phones, and everyone was covering it.. However, the Sprint version isn't as elegantly boxed as the international GSM version. We get a standard shaped box instead of the glossy diamond box everyone else gets. In fact, the phone looks different from the GSM version, too.

Inside the box, we get the phone, a battery, a USB cable, an AC to USB charger, a CD, and some various books. It also came with a stereo headset that doubles as a headphone. The connector uses a proprietary HTC connector, however. An adapter was included to allow for standard 2.5" connected headsets or 3.5" connected stereo headphones. As a nice touch, they included a plastic screen protector, which I promptly ruined by trying to reapply it.

It may not be elegant packaging like the GSM version, but it works.

The Touch Pro
The phone itself differs a bit from the international version seen and videoed all over the Internet. Instead of a diamond-textured back, the back of the Sprint version sports a grayish color that is slightly rubberized. Both my brother and I liked the way Sprint did this, since the diamond back we saw online wasn't very attractive to us. The other difference is that HTC removed the web cam (camera on the front). Some believe it is because EVDO doesn't have a fast enough upload speed for a web cam to be practical. It still have a 3.2 megapixel camera on mounted on the back though.

The screen is both dark and bright at the same time. This gives an awesome blending-in effect. The bar where the Start button is located at, as well as the context sensitive button bars below are black in color, which blends in with the black benzel of the unit. This make the screen look smaller than it is, but this also proves that the screen's black level is so dark that it can fool you into thinking it is not part of the screen at all!

Not to say the screen is too dark. Because of the excellent black level,the screen is also pretty bright when it needs to when it is show off colors. It can get pretty darn bright at night, so I have to adjust the backlight a few ticks lower from center. I found out that it has a light sensor to detect ambient light to automatically adjust the backlight, but found that even at the darkest of rooms, the backlight is still too bright in auto mode.

Unlike the Diamond, the buttons below the screen are pretty solid sounding (no creaking). The screen slides to the right to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The keys are smaller than the Mogul, which allows for a fifth row dedicated to numbers. The center "wheel" is a touch wheel that allows you to circle your finger to invoke the zoom feature in most applications. To actually use it as a directional pad is hard! Because they are not dedicated buttons for up, down, left, and right, I find myself not able to go a certain direction sometimes. The center button is the only thing that gives a solid click, since it is a dedicated button.

The bottom part of the device is where the proprietary HTC connector is located. A standard mini-B USB connector surprisingly fits there, which allows you to charge the Diamond via a standard USB charger. Much like the iPod dock connector, this connector is multi-purpose. It also allows you to use a standard USB cable to sync and transfer data. Once plugged in, you can choose to let the device act as a card reader (there is a micro-SD card slot on the Touch Pro).
As for the size of the thing... well.. on the internet, photos and videos make it look larger than it really is. Once I got it, it was the exact same size as my Centro. Since I've been carrying the Centro around all this time, the Touch Pro doesn't feel much different. It is a bit heavier than the Centro, though.
Compared to the Diamond, it's a few millimeters thick. When I placed it beside my brother's Diamond, we were surprised at the small difference! Online, it looks like the Touch Pro would almost be twice as thick as the Diamond, but it's just not so!

TouchFlo 3D
The TouchFlo 3D is HTC's second version of their Touch interface. The original TouchFlo on the HTC Touch was rarely used since my brother left it on the HTC-modified Today screen. The Touch interface is brought up by flicking your finger up on the screen and gives a nicer representation of your contact list and programs, but not too much else.

Here, the new 3D version is now much more in-your-face. HTC basically designed it to replace most of the GUI Microsoft designed for Windows Mobile. And that's a good thing! Every WinMo device I've used is clunky. I'm starting to think it's not the device's fault, but the WinMo OS itself. If you can use another interface that replaces WinMo, but still allows for WinMo apps to run, that would be a great compromise!

The TouchFlo3D feels like an application on top of Windows Mobile 6.1. In fact, it's as if HTC ripped the interface for the Instinct (very slick and smooth interface) out and made it a WinMo app.

Unlike the first Touch, the interface seem to take over completely, while allowing you to access the standard WinMo interface when need be, which is completely the opposite of the original Touch interface. You are able to access many more features without leaving the TouchFlo 3D interface. For example, you can check your email, invoke Opera Mobile (web browser), play music, check text messages, check the weather, and more! I found myself never having to touch the native Windows Mobile interface that is sitting below the TouchFlo3D interface for most things.

Playing music doesn't require you to use the Media Player, which is a bit clunky on a phone. The player inside of the TouchFlo 3D is much more like something you'd fine on a well thought-out phone interface. Just like the iPhone, you get a version of a finger flipping interface that allows you to flip through songs or albums. The album art is displayed as well.

The weather part of the TouchFlo 3D interface is animated, which gives it a very slick feel. When it's a rainy day, you see the clouds come in and water droplets. Every once in a while, a wiper comes out and wipes the drops away! Even on a cloudy day, the way they animated the clouds makes the whole experience much more fun and amusing. You can add many different cities to check up on, which is nice.

The phone applet also continues the slick factor by using the 3D engine to display the dial pad and answer buttons. The big hard-to-miss buttons are a welcomed feature, and does feel and look like the ones found on the iPhone.

Of course, to select all these different parts of the phone, there is a bar where you can slide your finger back and forward to access each function. They move and slide in realtime with your finger!

As great as it sounds, the TouchFlo 3D is still very clunky compared to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Sometimes, it thinks you clicked on something instead of flicking. It happens way too often, actually. Opening and closing the keyboard is suppose to bring the screen into landscape or portrait mode, but sometimes it just locks up in the former position for a good minute or so before changing!
And just like the desktop version of Windows, it can become unstable more often compared to the Palm OS, and even more so than the iPhone.
Opera Mobile 9
The Opera Mobile application gets it's own entry since most users of this type of phone surfs the web most of the time. Opera Mobile replaces Internet Explorer as the default browser of choice, but IE is still available if you rather use that instead.

I honestly don't see a reason to use IE, however. Opera Mobile 9 is very slick, and goes with the TouchFlo 3D smooth mantra very well. You can zoom in and out in gradient steps instead of the basic zoom in/out in other versions. Unfortunately, it doesn't use the pinch and expand finger gestures like in the iPhone, which is more intuitive. Instead, you run your finger in a circle over the directional pad on the phone to do the zooming work.

It defaults to the full-screen view, which is a good overview of how the page looks. The URL and navigation bars disappear to give you a screen that is full of nothing but the website itself. A small tab on the bottom right gives you access to the URL and navigation bars.

Opera also gives you a tab view, which doesn't have actual visible tabs like on the desktop version of Opera (or even Firefox). Instead, it's a button that pops up a list of sites you still have open. This makes sense, as there really isn't much screen real estate to show real tabs to represent the different pages you have open. This is a great feature since most mobile phones doesn't allow you to multi-task like this with multiple websites.

There are some problems, however. Flash still isn't supported, and the ability to flip between landscape and portrait mode is finicky. It isn't the gyroscopic sensor though, since a game (Teeter) uses it perfectly (and accurately).

Surfing using Sprint's EVDO (Power Vision) is decent. It's not fast, but it's not painfully slow either. Things are bit better over WiFi, but it still seem to be slower than what I would expect. I guess the rendering engine is the bottleneck and not the Internet connection (8 Mbit Comcast internet).
I know this for a fact - using a software (USB Modem) to allow my laptop to get on the internet over Sprint's EVDO network, a speed test confirms a wicked download speed of 1.2 Mbit/s! Upload speeds are appauling at 128 kbit/sec. No wonder the web cam was canned.
This is much faster than my Centro, which topped out at 300 kbit/sec download. It proves that EVDO rev A is worth it! And FYI, the Treo 800w support this new revision.

Keyboard
While the Diamond is keyboard-less, the Touch Pro is basically the a Diamond with a slide-out physical keyboard. The buttons may seem small at first, but it is easy to type pretty quickly on. I do miss one thing since moving away from my trusty Centro. The ability to tap out messages with one hand cannot be done on a wide keyboard such as the one found here. The Treo 800w and Centro does one better in this regard.

Sound Quality
I must say that I am very impressed with the sound quality of this device! When playing back music or videos, the speaker is loud and clear! It can make you the center of attention in a busy restaurant. The speaker seem to direct sound to the top of your phone (which is the side if you orienent it in landscape mode). This means that for the viewer, it may not sound that loud while the person sitting next to you will get blasted.

Wiith the headphones, music sounds pretty good! You can dedicate this device as your MP3 player if you wish. I have a 8GB microSD card, so it works. I can also put a few MP4 videos and watch them on the nice 640x480 screen. If you purchase a 3rd party software (Core Player), it can also play XviD and DivX videos as well!

Phone calls using the speaker phone isn't so good, however. Since the speaker is directed away from the user (and the sound is pretty directional), I find it hard to understand most people without bringing the phone closer or pointing the top of the phone to my ears. Most people who called say they can hear me, however, but still rather have me use it as a handset or use a hands-free headset so the mic is closer.

Phone
Speaking of the phone, the home screen allows for you to quickly dial out numbers and access your contacts. Your call history can be accessed here, as well. As you type in numbers, it tries to match it in your contact list and offer the best possible match for you to tap on before you finish tapping out the entire number.

Phone quality using the ear piece (as if using as a standard hand set) is pretty good. No complaints from other callers, and I can hear them just fine. I feel that it sounds much better, louder, and clearer compared to the Centro.

A nice touch includes the ability to take notes while on a call. When you click on the Notes button, the caller information (including date and time of call) is automatically inserted at the top. You can then tap out or scribble your notes during the conversation. Neat!
Memory
The Touch Pro comes with onboard memory for programs and storage, which is shared (256 MB split up between the two jobs). Then there is the microSD card that allows you to add more storage space for media and documents, as well as programs.
Once you hook up the Touch Pro to your computer, you can make it act like a card reader and access files directly off the microSD card. This is nice, since to access the card, you'd have to pull the battery cover off. I hate doing this as I feel it may wear out the tabs and eventually make the phone feel creaky and loose over time.
Battery Life
Battery life of the HTC Touch Pro is one of the worst performers when it comes to battery life. Even with a 1350 mAH battery in tow, the darn thing doesn't last the entire day!
My usage pattern includes surfing the net for a few minutes at a time and a bit of phone usage (I don't get much calls, and I rarely need to call anyone). I'm not a heavy user by any means. However, after unhooking the power at around 11am, by 6:30pm, the Touch Pro was lifeless.
WiFi is off, but data and push is on. Bluetooth was also off.

Conclusion
The Diamond and Touch Pro is one of the best Windows Mobile devices out there now, which isn't saying too much about Windows Mobile in general. However, for those who need a Windows Mobile device, these two represent the best you can get at the moment.
The reason for this is because of the TouchFlo 3D interface. Without it, it'll just be another slow and clunky WinMo device. But thanks to the 3D interface, it's fast and slick for almost everything you do (email, phone, web). That is until you go back into the WinMo's non-3D interface.

It seems like nothing will make WinMo smooth and slick like the iPhone, but HTC knew this, so they made a replacement interface instead. Since it runs on WinMo, you have the compatibility and versatility of WinMo and apps written for it, and the slick quick interface for when you're just using it as a phone (and a bit beyond).
If you want a slick interface, but still need a WinMo device (such as needing certain apps, or needing to sync with Exchange, or just company policy), these two devices will be the best you can do. Otherwise, if you are looking for a slick interface for a phone, you should check out the iPhone 3G and Samsung's Instinct (which is also impressively slick!).

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 299
Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must!