vincentkong.com

The HTC Diamond Touch has been getting a lot of hype; with a sleek external design combined with a VGA screen, and 4GB internal storage, it’s currently one of the best Windows Mobile phone available.

The hardware specification is not the only thing appealing about the HTC Diamond, but the newly introduced TouchFlo 3D software gives you a cool way to navigate over the phone with touch control and finger gestures.

The phone is definitely very appealing, but I’m pretty sure the price won’t be. Luckily there is a much cheaper way to get a HTC Diamond like phone. The developers from XDA-Developers.com managed to get their hands on the Windows Moble 6.1 ROM from the HTC Diamond Touch, and then ported it to work for the HTC Prophet a.k.a Dopod 818 Pro. I downloaded the ROM known as the Throttle IV Diamond 5.2.19213 and flashed my phone with it. The results was a bit disappointing as the ROM was a bit buggy and worked very sluggish on my Dopod phone.

Since I only cared about the TouchFlo 3D features, and not the other HTC Diamond applications, there were two alternative solutions available that worked a lot better.

The Throttle Launcher application which is also bundled with the Throttle IV Diamond 5.2.19213 can be installed individually and provide TouchFlo 3D like features without making my phone sluggish.

A more stable alternative is to install the HTC Diamond SPB MS2.1 Theme v1.1, which works on top of the Spb Mobile Shell 2.1. However, with this theme you only get a similar look to the HTC Diamond, the finger control gestures are based on the Spb Mobile Shell. Another issue is the Spb Mobile Shell is not free.

Until there is a better ROM available, I’ll be sticking with these alternatives and pretend that I’m using the HTC Diamond for now.