Database Develop

My first impressions

Basically, I am underwhelmed
After a few hours playing, my thoughts .....
The Good
Nice size
Looks good
Screen resolution
The bad
Touch interface is crap. Give me SPB Mobile Shell any day
The on/off switch is easily knocked on/off - in the pocket or especially when using the slip case
Frequent waits for a response from a screen press -so you press it again, and again, and again and then things lock up or slow down.
The back gets really hot when using GPS or heavy 3G use
... and the ugly
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
A triumph of form over function
I wonder what other little gems are waiting to be discovered

Touch interface is crap. Give me SPB Mobile Shell any day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tweaks solve this problem.
The on/off switch is easily knocked on/off - in the pocket or especially when using the slip case
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is indeed a big problem, if true.
Frequent waits for a response from a screen press -so you press it again, and again, and again and then things lock up or slow down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said above, tweaking solve it.
The back gets really hot when using GPS or heavy 3G use
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How hot can it get ?, stop being a child.
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can buy a case that will always be on. It will be better protected too.

PaulusUK said:
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you shouldn't have eaten fried chicken before using it

tweaking is always the answer.. but why bother?
so it seems that even this Diamond that was announced as SO great needs tweaking to be REALLY usable :-(
But why do HTC always require to do all the job of installing, testing, tweaking, re-testing, uninstalling (as soft is not compatible with 'just' this device) , re-installing another one, test it for a few days, etc...
(including all the crashes that we have while testing it)
Lame !
Shame on HTC and Windows Mobile for making an OS where not-everything may work great.
Well.. iPhone then.

Come on, it's worth it just for Teeter! I've just finished it, need to call it a night.
Seriously though, the accelerometer by itself is a brilliant addition and I'm sure some amazing applications will come of it.

PaulusUK said:
Basically, I am underwhelmed
After a few hours playing, my thoughts .....
The Good
Nice size
Looks good
Screen resolution
The bad
Touch interface is crap. Give me SPB Mobile Shell any day
The on/off switch is easily knocked on/off - in the pocket or especially when using the slip case
Frequent waits for a response from a screen press -so you press it again, and again, and again and then things lock up or slow down.
The back gets really hot when using GPS or heavy 3G use
... and the ugly
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
A triumph of form over function
I wonder what other little gems are waiting to be discovered
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol!
Wait until you need to use the speakerphone or direct push mail, and your battery only lasts 3 hours on standby.

mital said:
lol!
Wait until you need to use the speakerphone or direct push mail, and your battery only lasts 3 hours on standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I use those and my phone lasts till the end of the day, How long have you had the phone? I have noticed with every charge the batterys improves.

Mital, you hd it for a few weeks now ?
happy overall or not ?
The battery is going to be that bad for most device when using push email, I have my HTC Trion and if push email on with GPRS it last a bit more than a working day, if Wifi then just around 8 hours,
seem sno much differece with Dimond then.

My first major problem was that of no GPS access - several programs would not access the GPS and the phone would freeze when the GPS was accessed. Then I loaded Microsoft Voice Command 1.6 and this completely locked the phone - TouchFlo worked, but nothing would open when clicked on, and no change after soft resets either.
So, the first hard reset.
Then after reinstalling some GPS software, still no access to the GPS - and no changes in the com port settings made any difference.
So after much faffing about, the second hard reset.
So here I am scared to touch the phone in case I upset it and it frezes me out again!
And I think Opera hogs the resourses not only in use, but even after its closed down. The diamond works even slower after I have used Opera. Wierd.
And yes it is red hot after GPS and GPRS/3G use. I will measure it tonight with and IR thermometer, but there is no way it can be handheld for a long time at that temperature.
I suppose I could fry some bacon and eggs on it while waiting for the OS to do something. lol

Mmm, bacon and eggs sounds good to me, count me in!
I have to say I'm not experiencing the problems your getting. The only problem, which is easily solved, is that I don't get as good reception as with other phones Ive previously owned, but Ive noticed there are a few Radio updates floating around XDA Developers so will look into that.
With regards to programs not closing correctly, i found that making sure that when the 'X' is touched it closes down the program, does it for me.
Also my GPS works flawlessly with Tom Tom. I think you may unfortunately have a faulty unit as im not experiencing any of what your suggesting. My phone gets warm but never hot enough for Bacon AND Eggs
I find the handset can be a bit frustrating when typing sometimes, but thats always been the case with touch screen phones and people who say that they are perfect and better than a hardware keyboard are telling porkies! HTC arent there yet, but for me, there not far off!
Seriously tho, im sorry to hear that your getting problems and hopefully they will be solved soon.

Well, I have my Diamond since mid-June and I have to say that at first I wasn't very impressed with its speed.
The TF3D was very jerky and took a long to respond to my inputs.
Since my unit was one of those grey imports from HK made by Expansys, I thought that it probably had something to do with it, mainly a very early ROM (It's my third HTC model and I'm used to buy it and then tweak it).
So I started to look in the xda-dev forum and to try some of the ROMs, tweaks and cab files that our xda-dev resident geniuses provide.
And I must say that my Diamond is behaving very well, certainly a lot, lot better than it did a month ago.
- I never had major problems with any kind of software (not that I have a lot of stuff installed)
- The 4Gb storage memory is (for the time being) enough for my needs.
- The GPS (with TomTom 6), BT, WiFi and all that is working OK.
- The battery duration improved and it lasts for a day or more (more significantly since ROM update)
- The VGA screen is a must
On the other hand it does get a bit hot doing certain tasks, but so does my laptop when I have it sitting in my lap.
Also, even though HTC made a huge effort (in my opinion) to make a more 'user friendly' interface, don't forget that it still runs on MS WM6, and that, for now, is something that we have to live with.
Overall, I recommend it, but to get the most of it, you really need to keep looking for updates (and xda-dev is the best place for it) to improve its performance.
Regards,

GPS on the diamond

I have igo installed on my diamond and it seems that the GPS position is updated every 1 second. Is this how it is or should it be 'real time'. The reason i ask is that i also have a lag issue(as highlighted in other threads) and since noticing that it only updates every second i thought that this could be the problem.
Thanks
Gary

Hi
1 second seems about right, I have Tomtom 7 running on mine and its only slightly faster than that

huwwatkins said:
Hi
1 second seems about right, I have Tomtom 7 running on mine and its only slightly faster than that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers mate
How do you find the accuracy when using tomtom? Is there any lag issues or is it ok? Igo seems to be always playing catchup so if tomtoms better,i may switch.
Thanks again
Gaz

Hi, I've not used it all that much, but it managed to keep up when I was driving down the m4 motorway last week and get me to where I needed to go. Didn't appear to be any lag.

huwwatkins said:
Hi
1 second seems about right, I have Tomtom 7 running on mine and its only slightly faster than that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you know where I can download Tomtom 7 for free to my Touch Diamond?

After I bought a Diamond, here's my point of view...

Hi,
I consider myself as a hardcore PPC user. I use my PPC for almost everything and if I ever lost my PPC, I have nothing... well.. but of course I have backup on my laptop.
Battery Life
I use a bluetooth earphone during work, meaning that the bluetooth is turned on on my PPC from 8am to 5pm (discovery off). Before going to work, I spend about 5 to 20 minutes reading internet news via WiFi. Normally when I reached home from work, I have about 10% power left. Without WiFi in the morning, I have about 20% to 25% power left. Well, this is when I was using O2 Xda II mini (HTC Magician) and O2 Atom Life. Believe it or not, when I gave my O2 Xda II mini to my wife, she only need to recharge it after 3 to 4 days of usage, and the same thing happen when I gave her my O2 Atom Life.
Getting my hand on HTC Diamond, well it is the same. It lasted as long as my previous 2 PPCs, except that the battery is smaller, meaning, it actually is better. Since it has built-in GPS, if it is used, of course the battery will die faster, but from my usage, the built-in GPS does not consume more power than the WiFi.
To make it short, the battery life on PPC is based on how long you turned it on (usage time, not standby mode). If it is stated in the specification as 3 hours talk-time, then it will last for 3 hours of usage. That is what people are forgetting. When using other handphone (which are not PPC), people only use it to talk, sms or some gaming. When they switch to PPC, there are so many things that you can do with it and people actually spend more time using it not awaring of the total time used (not standby mode). There is a good software, AE Button Plus, which can measure the uptime for us. It shows the usage time as well.
Volume
All of my PPC has decend volume level, which O2 Atom Life is the lowest. Not sure why because it has 2 speakers (stereo). It should be louder right? But Diamond actually is loader than it. But there seems to be a solution here. In O2 Atom Life, I used the Equalizer to increase the volume. There is none on Diamond but I believe you can find one in this forum.
GPS
I love the GPS, except sometimes the GPS software cannot seem to turn the GPS on (1 out of 10). Need to close the software and reopen. Previously I was using Garmin Mobile 10 (via bluetooth) and comparing with the built-in GPS, the lock-time is very very fast.
With Garmin Mobile 10, I turn it on, get in my car, start the car, then wait from 1 minutes to 3 minutes before it can get a lock. With Diamond's built-in GPS, I open the GPS software, get in my car, start the car and I already has a lock.
The problem now is the slow screen refresh (the time taken to redraw the screen). With my O2 Atom Life, the screen redraw is fast (when I make a turn or the map zoom in or out). With Diamond, when I make a turn, I can see the roads being redraw one by one. If I turn the auto-zoom on (Garmin Mobile XT), it will go black for 1 to 3 seconds before the screen reappear when it tries to zoom in or zoom out.
I believe this has something to do with the display resolution of Diamond, 640x480 compared to 320x240 (on my Atom Life). The higher the resolution, the lower the framerate. Further more Atom Life processor is faster. But comparing to Xda II mini, Xda II mini is a little bit faster (redrawing rate).
Please remember that Diamond has a built-in graphic processor (correct me if I'm wrong). When software make use of this graphic processor, I believe we would not have this problem anymore. Instead, we might get real 3D display.
Overall
Overall, I'm satisfied with my new Diamond but of course I always wanted a longer usage time... so I think I better start looking for HTC Touch Pro.

programatix said:
Hi,
Overall
Overall, I'm satisfied with my new Diamond but of course I always wanted a longer usage time... so I think I better start looking for HTC Touch Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...or get yourself the HTC Diamond extended battery BP E270. It has 1350 mAh instead of 900 and it adds only 4 mm thickness => Diamond + BP E270 = still slimmer and lighter than Pro. Unless of course, you want the keyboard.

programatix said:
There is a good software, AE Button Plus, which can measure the uptime for us. It shows the usage time as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's off topic, but can you explain that more please ?

My opinion...
I currently have two major issues with the Diamond. They aren't helped by the horrendous T-Mobile branding job! (Surely the execs that rubber-stamped those colours should be made to wear that horrible T-Mobile pink every day to work for a year to see how it feels).
In light of the above, I've obviously had to apply the original Diamond Black on top. Problem is, it eats Main Memory space for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I'm always struggling with space! Really annoying!
The second issue is probably because I'm a tad impatient and may be considered a power user by some. The thing is, when I'm doing things on my phone, I expect it to react, if not instantaneously, then at least in a split second. Often the Diamond lags considerably, which can be very frustrating and lead to incorrect actions. The most common of these is when ending a call. When I press the end call key, I expect the call to be ended now - not in 3 seconds' time!
OK, end of *****.

The CDMA (telus) phone already comes with the HTC Diamond extended battery BP E270!
.....But, still. There's always room for more. There's a 1800mAh battery floating around but apparently has a hideous replacement backing that just takes away from what the Diamond is all about - it's slim low profile.

Yodajr said:
It's off topic, but can you explain that more please ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it's a software which allows you to set 4 actions for a hardware button on a PPC. You can find it here (http://ae.inc.ru/aebplus.php).
It also comes with extra functions like displaying the uptime statistic, task manager, bluetooth toggle, wifi toggle and more.

belovedra said:
Problem is, it eats Main Memory space for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I'm always struggling with space! Really annoying!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it depends on what software you are running and believe me, most PPC users are struggling with that. Imagine with 64mb of main memory which only 24mb available on start up. With diamond, it's about 52mb free main memory on start up, right? Further more, most handphone (not PPC) has about only 64mb of main memory, for example, N95-1
belovedra said:
The second issue is probably because I'm a tad impatient and may be considered a power user by some. The thing is, when I'm doing things on my phone, I expect it to react, if not instantaneously, then at least in a split second. Often the Diamond lags considerably, which can be very frustrating and lead to incorrect actions. The most common of these is when ending a call. When I press the end call key, I expect the call to be ended now - not in 3 seconds' time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, this is an issue not only with Diamond. It exists in all PPC since PPC is able to multitask, sometimes it becomes slow because of the tasks running in background.
Another problem is related to some task managers which close running application when you tap 'X'. The next time you want to call that application up, the PPC need to reload the application which is slow. In another word, don't close the program when you tap 'X'. Comparing to normal handphone (other than PPC), you have limited software running which actually does not allow you to mod the phone. So, most critical applications stay in main memory, it is fast to call up the unclosed applications (like calender, phone and contacts).
Regarding ending call, the problem you mentioned also exists in other PPC, like my O2 Atom Life and O2 Xda II mini. Actually, when you press or tap the End Call button, it actually ended it but the screen refresh seems slow, so we tend to keep on tapping the end button, which sometimes end up in calling the person again.

losdrivare said:
...or get yourself the HTC Diamond extended battery BP E270. It has 1350 mAh instead of 900 and it adds only 4 mm thickness => Diamond + BP E270 = still slimmer and lighter than Pro. Unless of course, you want the keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a great news. Since I'm living in Malaysia, it's hard to find one. HTC Touch Pro has not been released yet here. But actually I wanted Touch Pro because of the size of the main memory. I've been living with 64MB (normally about 24MB available for user) of main memory for too long and I always wanted to load more applications at once (greedy eh?).
Further more, since my Atom Life has 1GB of ROM (795MB available for use), living with only 256MB of ROM (only 82MB available for use) on Diamond leaves me starving for more.
Regarding the keyboard... I don't think I'll be using it, but who knows? If I can type faster using it than TouchPal, I'll definately be using it.

programatix said:
Ok, this is an issue not only with Diamond. It exists in all PPC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aha! So, once again it's the big beast M$ that's to blame. Makes sense. They seem to be behind a lot of trouble I see in Windows software... One of the reasons why I changed to Mac OSX.
Thanks programatix! I thought perhaps it was just the Diamond, or even the HTC range.

belovedra said:
When I press the end call key, I expect the call to be ended now - not in 3 seconds' time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try downloading the Advanced Config software for the Diamond, and check the Phone->End call delay. Change that to 0. Problem solved.
There are many solutions for many of the problems you mention, even for performance issues. Apart from Advanced Config, try also getting Diamond Tweak.

Battery issue is a common problem of PPC. Just imagine you are using a PC which is an your palm size. Of course it is designed to be energy efficient, but it will not last you for long days. That's why car charger and USB cable exist for you to charge your gadget often

programatix said:
Overall, I'm satisfied with my new Diamond but of course I always wanted a longer usage time... so I think I better start looking for HTC Touch Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have ActiveSync with Exchange server, you can save battery by setting the update to manual.

Problem with SensorLock

I really like the functionallity of SensorLock 0.40, but I think that it has a major problem. If you bounce the phone around while the phone is locked, it freaks out programs that are running while it is locked. Suspect that there is an issue with its polling of the hardware and when it is bounced around alot, it takes up too many resourses determining if you are trying to perform a gesture. Seen this while using TCPMP with it locked and then trying to run with the device tucked away in a pocket. Not only does it cause TCPMP to stop playing music, but I suspect that it is drawing significantly more battery. Anyone have a fix or know of a comparable lock program without issues?

According to some post i read, Sensorlock has stopped his development already. Alternatively, you can tryout Pocketshield which is a shareware untill u buy it or S2U2 by A_C.

i hoped that S2U2 worked for the Raphael! wasn't sure with the screen size change!

BBM-Lee said:
i hoped that S2U2 worked for the Raphael! wasn't sure with the screen size change!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
definitely working with the latest S2U2 1.33 as i own a HTC Raphael as mines working a-okay.

Best lock/unlock app

Hello
wanted to get everyone's opinion to whats the best lock app for our phones. i have tried several and i have problems with a lot of them.
i really like phone buddy, but i find it uses too much memory and power.
pocketshield is good too but i had problems with it. the phone wouldnt stay locked and i think i had a memory problem as well.
s2u2 is what i have used before and i do like it. but i had a problem with the volume on calls.
not sure if its something else im running.. im running the diamond2 g sensor and that may be it. or something else... not sure
help and suggesting would be great. i would like to find something i can use on my phone.
thanks

Mayonesa said:
pocketshield is good too but i had problems with it. the phone wouldnt stay locked and i think i had a memory problem as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pocketshield. best i've found, no impact on battery life and answering the phone is great. download the latest (they've been updating it alot) and turn off the shake wake up (gestures), light wakeup, center button, and stylus (so the only thing is slide down). i haven't had it wake up unexpectedly with those settings.
i tried s2u2 along time ago, but have heard from multiple sources that it negatively influenced battery life. anyone know if this is still true?

i liked pocketshield a lot but like i said, i turned the phone off so it would lock, as soon as i turned the phone on it would unlock without me fliping it or anything else.
the answer thing is nice but i like the slide to answer i already have. if it didnt disable that when i used the pocketshield one i would use it.
like i said, im not sure if something else if causing my issues.... i think i may uninstall the dimond2 g sensor.

still cant find any lock app that will work well.... sensorlock and glocker dont work at all. and pocketshield works for a short time but stops. not sure if its cause you have to pay for it. i would pay for it if it worked for a while with no problems. dont wanna pay for it and have the same problems.
any ideas?

S2U2
try using S2U2 fully configurable and if done right does not use up battery.
http://www.ac-s2.com/

I use S2U2. Doesn't affect my battery life

using S2U2 with tPro skin... nice

jcylcruzin said:
try using S2U2 fully configurable and if done right does not use up battery.
http://www.ac-s2.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
S2U2 is my favorite.
On a fast ROM (Like most of the ROM's on our forums), the program runs smoothly and nice.
I also like being able to pick pictures of my dog, or my bike, for the screens.
But my best practice for locking the phone is simply lock it out of habit when you put it away. Have "Slide to wake" disabled unless you really use it.

pocketshield for me, i had a few issues in the earlier releases but the newest is absolutely perfect, and pretty much everything is configurable to how i like it! seriously try the new one out and play in the settings to tweak it

Just use the new vertion of S2u2 together with the new skin
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=467435
Works without problem. and looks good.

Mayonesa said:
...
pocketshield is good too but i had problems with it. the phone wouldnt stay locked...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you have "light unlock" enabled and it is unlocking before you even notice it? (actually its the way it should be if you enable that feature)

has anyone tried throttle lock ? it has a slide to answer when you recieve calls while locked and it unlocks by drawing a pattern on a 3X3 grid of dots . Its a real nice app and has at least 35 different skins and is customizable. (customizing is rather arduous and takes awhile to do when it comes to making a new skin)

can anybody help me find Phone Buddy? i was trying to search it and i am not getting an conclusive results. The only thread that cmae up with anything is this thread....

S2U works just fine on my TP with stock rom, no negative battery impact noticable.

It seems all locking programs seem to have their own 'locked screen' that goes over the today screen. I have customized my today screen to have all the information i need at a glance and don't need another one.
I think Touchlock Pro is the only recent one that does not have this but I have other issues with it. Are there others I have missed?

Sunra said:
It seems all locking programs seem to have their own 'locked screen' that goes over the today screen. I have customized my today screen to have all the information i need at a glance and don't need another one.
I think Touchlock Pro is the only recent one that does not have this but I have other issues with it. Are there others I have missed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using AnswerkeysDisabler which locks the touch screen completely when a call comes in. Answering is only with the hardware keys. It's simple - no home screens, no swinging the phone around in circles to answer or anything Just plain works (as touch pro has those HW keys).
I found it from here somewhere - try it.

I use sensor lock. It's great! You can use phone gestures with the accelerometer to unlock your phone. For example, you can rotate your phone 360º to lock/unlock it.
Here is the app. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=422871