Resco’s recent Christmas party provided me with the opportunity to handle a few devices I didn’t get my hands on before. Here’s a short “description” of each:

Touch HD
First up: a Touch HD, courtesy of an unnamed Microsoft Slovakia employee. The device is rather big compared to a Treo 680:
0a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1 0b Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

An N96 looks tiny in comparison:
1a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1 1b Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

BTW: the box really has no fiveway navigator. The four buttons pictured are “soft buttons”, too – the power button is the only real one on the entire device:
2a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

When handling the device, I was immediately impressed by the huge screen. It makes stylus-less usage of WM fun…but can’t compensate the lack of a QWERTY keyboard for me… Nevertheless, its an impressive device for sure!

Touch Diamond
The Diamond was in my hands for just a few seconds…and I didn’t particularly like it due to the “small” screen and the weird fiveway navigator (can’t manufacturers finally get back to traditional ones).
3a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

The machine is insanely small, though:
4a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1 4b Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1
4c Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1 4d Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

XPERIA X1
I also had the opportunity to handle the X1 (courtesy of a guy from Lieber Lieber who regularly comments on TamsPPC and who I met by chance):
5a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

While the devices keyboard is good enough for my taste, I start to dislike the screen as I feel it is too small. Nevertheless, its the best tradeoff of the three for me..so if my carrier (Three Austria) manages to track one down for me, I’ll probably take it…
6a Hands on with the Touch Diamond, Touch HD and XPERIA X1

In the end, I have to say that none of the three devices reaches the level of excellency found in an old HP iPaq or Palm Tungsten handheld. The boxen definitely are small, handy and fast…but the lack of a keyboard and/or a fiveway nav is a major turndown for me…


Related posts:

  1. Touch Diamond / Touch Pro to hit the US coast soon
  2. News from XPERIA-land
  3. Rolling Stones to HTC Touch Diamond: paint it red, pink, yellow, etc
  4. HTC Touch Pro – quick hands-on
  5. First hands-on report about HTC Touch Pro