Unusual Comparison: HTC Diamond vs. Nokia E71

HTC Touch Diamond and Nokia E71 don't have too much in common. But they're both high-end devices that will soon be available on lots of markets around the world. Actually, they are already on sale, but only in few of the countries for which they have been announced by HTC and Nokia.

Why do I speak about these two handsets? Because there's a recently-uploaded YouTube video that presents the Diamond in comparison with the E71.

The first part of the video shows the TouchFlo 3D interface of the Diamond, which is, theoretically at least, far more evolved than the Symbian S60 interface of E71, mainly due to the fact that it's enhanced by a 2.8 touchscreen display at a 480 x 640 pixel resolution. The Eseries smartphone only comes with a 2.36 non-touchscreen display with 240 x 320 pixels. Still, the display of E71 is better when it comes to color number (16 million, as opposed to 65,000 supported by Diamond's screen).

After the TouchFlo 3D interface is presented, the Diamond and Nokia E71 are put side by side in the video, so we can see the design-related differences between them. Nokia E71 is 1.5 millimeter thinner than the Diamond and this can be easily noticed. Anyway, the Diamond measures less when it comes to length and width, so I guess this compensates for its thickness (which is of only 11.5 millimeters anyway).

HTC Diamond will probably appeal more to users who want a fashionable device, while Nokia E71 will be seen as a first-choice by business users (its full QWERTY keyboard is surely attractive). After all, these are the main targets for which the Taiwanese and the Finnish companies have designed the new handsets in the first place.

While at first I said the two devices do not have much in common, they actually share a range of features including: GPS, Wi-Fi, GSM and HSDPA connectivity, a 3.15 Megapixel camera with auto focus, advanced Web and email functionality as well as advanced multimedia capabilities. Sure, the big difference is that Diamond is a Windows Mobile 6.1 Pocket PC, while E71 is a Symbian S60 3rd Edition smartphone.

The retail price of HTC Touch Diamond is of about $800 (505 Euros), while Nokia's E71 sells for about $550 (350 Euros). The price difference is quite a big one, but touchscreen handsets are (almost) always more expensive than the regular ones.

Conclusion: HTC Diamond vs. Nokia E71 is not a "fight" that can end with a winner and a loser, as the devices have different purposes. But it's still nice to see them compared, so the video I was talking about is presented below. There's no sound unfortunately, but it's said that images are better than 1000 words, so here it goes (the video might stop at 0:18, but if you move the side-bar a bit to the right it will continue to play):