HTC Touch Diamond2 Release: HTC's 2009 Windows Mobile Upgrade

HTC's Touch Diamond had been one of the more talked-about Windows Mobile phones of 2008, and by early 2009 HTC was ready to show what came next. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company revealed a follow-up built around a larger, sharper screen, a refined interface layer, and a spec sheet that quietly fixed some of the original's most-criticized shortcomings — expandable storage chief among them. This retrospective covers the HTC Touch Diamond2, codename Topaz, using Mobility Today's own archived coverage plus independently verified contemporary sources, and it keeps this device's specs separate from the original Touch Diamond, the Touch Pro2, the Touch HD, and the HD2.

What Was the HTC Touch Diamond2?

The Touch Diamond2 was a Windows Mobile touchscreen smartphone HTC positioned as the direct successor to 2008's original Touch Diamond. It kept the candybar shape and TouchFLO 3D interface associated with the first phone, but moved to a larger 3.2-inch WVGA screen, added a touch-sensitive zoom bar below the display, bumped the camera to 5 megapixels, and — notably — added microSD expansion where the original had none. It launched on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, with an upgrade path to 6.5 promised for later rather than included from day one.

The MWC 2009 Announcement and Codename Topaz

HTC announced the Touch Diamond2 on February 16, 2009, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, alongside a second new device, the Touch Pro2. Ahead of the unveiling, enthusiast and leak coverage referred to the phone by its internal codename, Topaz — the same pattern HTC used for earlier devices like Polaris and Kaiser before their retail names went public. In its own announcement, HTC framed the Diamond2 as bringing a more mature Touch experience, including a claimed battery-life improvement, \"to a broad consumer audience\" — marketing language, worth noting as HTC's framing rather than this article's assessment.

Original Touch Diamond vs Touch Diamond2

The 3.2-Inch WVGA Resistive Display

The Touch Diamond2's screen measured 3.2 inches diagonally at 480x800 WVGA resolution — a real jump over the original Diamond's 2.8-inch VGA panel, and sharp for a Windows Mobile phone of this period. Worth being explicit here: this was a resistive, pressure-based touchscreen, not the capacitive multitouch display the iPhone had popularized. Resistive panels of this era generally supported a single point of contact and responded to firm pressure rather than a light graze, which shaped how TouchFLO 3D's gestures were tuned.

The Zoom Bar Explained

New to the Diamond2 was a narrow, touch-sensitive zoom bar along the bottom edge of the screen, replacing the original Diamond's circular zoom gesture. Sliding a finger along it worked inside the photo viewer, Google Maps, and Opera Mobile, and contemporary reviewers generally liked it — some called it more intuitive than the original's circle-zoom, and a few compared its responsiveness favorably to the iPhone's pinch-to-zoom. It wasn't system-wide, though: its effect was limited to a specific set of apps, doing nothing for font size or navigation elsewhere.

Processor, RAM, and ROM

Under the hood sat a Qualcomm MSM7200A chipset running at roughly 528MHz, paired with 288MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM. Those numbers sound tiny today, but they were competitive for a mid-2009 Windows Mobile phone, and the extra RAM gave the more data-integrated TouchFLO 3D more headroom to run smoothly.

microSD Expansion: A Real Upgrade

Perhaps the most practically significant hardware change was storage. The original Touch Diamond shipped with 4GB of fixed internal storage and no card slot, a real point of friction for Windows Mobile buyers used to expandable storage on earlier devices. The Diamond2 corrected that directly, adding a dedicated microSD slot — a simple fix that made it meaningfully more flexible than its predecessor for anyone carrying music, photos, or documents.

The 5-Megapixel Camera

The rear camera moved from the original's 3.2 megapixels to 5 megapixels with autofocus, plus a VGA-resolution front-facing camera intended for video calling over 3G — a feature that saw limited real-world adoption and varied by carrier. Video capture topped out at 480p at 15 frames per second, modest even by 2009 standards, but the still-camera bump was a genuine, easily noticed improvement.

GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and HSDPA/HSUPA Bands

The Diamond2 included integrated GPS with assisted-GPS support, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP stereo audio — none of it a leap over the original Diamond's similar baseline connectivity, more a matter of keeping pace than breaking new ground. Cellular data ran over HSDPA on the 900 and 2100MHz bands, alongside quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE for 850/900/1800/1900MHz — a band configuration matching European and Asian 3G frequencies, not the bands US carriers used at the time. Mobility Today's own contemporary coverage made exactly this point about an imported unlocked unit, warning readers not to expect US 3G bands. HSUPA upload support existed on paper for this chipset generation, though exact upload speeds and carrier-by-carrier support go beyond what this article can verify.

TouchFLO 3D: What Changed, and Why It Wasn't Sense

TouchFLO 3D itself wasn't new to the Diamond2 — it debuted on the original Touch Diamond and Touch Pro in 2008. What changed on the Diamond2 was depth of integration: HTC tied the interface more closely into Windows Mobile 6.1's underlying apps and menus, added Stock and Calendar tabs to the existing horizontal row, and let users hide or rearrange tabs to fit how they actually used the phone. Contacts, messaging, email, photos, weather, and the browser remained part of TouchFLO 3D's top-level experience, now with less app-hopping between related information like a contact's photos or a calendar entry's location. Worth being precise, too, since the two are sometimes conflated in hindsight: TouchFLO 3D was not HTC Sense. Sense arrived later as HTC's next-generation branded interface, first on HTC's early Android and later Windows Mobile devices, and it rebuilt the phone's software experience far more thoroughly than TouchFLO 3D's tab-and-shortcut approach ever attempted. TouchFLO 3D is better understood as a conceptual predecessor — a real evolutionary link — not an earlier version of the same product under a different name.

Windows Mobile 6.1 at Launch, and the Later 6.5 Upgrade

Every Touch Diamond2 shipped from the factory running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, the same generation the original Touch Diamond launched on the year before, bundling Outlook Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile, Office Mobile, and Exchange ActiveSync. Worth stating plainly, since it's easy to get wrong in hindsight: the Diamond2 did not ship with Windows Mobile 6.5 out of the box. HTC promised an upgrade path at launch, but the official 6.5 ROM update didn't become available until months later — European-localized versions rolled out starting around October 28, 2009, with additional regional ROMs following in early November, roughly six to seven months after the phone reached unlocked markets that April. Anyone who bought a Diamond2 at launch ran 6.1 for the better part of a year before 6.5 became an option.

Battery: 1,100mAh and the 50% Claim

The Diamond2 shipped with a removable 1,100mAh lithium-ion battery, up from the original Diamond's 900mAh cell. In its own MWC announcement, HTC stated the Diamond2 would deliver \"fifty-percent better battery life\" than the original — language straight from HTC's press materials. This article treats that figure as HTC's own marketing claim, not an independently verified benchmark; real-world battery life depended heavily on screen brightness, active radios, and usage pattern, and no independent period test confirming the exact 50% figure turned up in researching this piece.

Release Timing Across Markets

Following the February MWC announcement, the Touch Diamond2 reached unlocked retail availability in European and Asian markets in April 2009. A UK retail listing cited in Mobility Today's own contemporary coverage showed the phone available around April 19, 2009, at roughly 425 British pounds — about $100 more than a pre-order price the site had noted back in late February. There was no single simultaneous global launch; carrier-specific and regional versions followed their own schedules over the following months.

The HTC Pure: AT&T's Related Device

In the US, AT&T sold a close relative of the Touch Diamond2 branded the HTC Pure, released October 6, 2009 — roughly six months after the Diamond2 reached unlocked markets overseas. The two shared the same core internal hardware, but weren't identical in every respect: the Pure wore a glossier, more uniformly rounded plastic body rather than the Diamond2's metal-edged design, dropped the front-facing video camera, and — because it arrived after HTC's official 6.5 upgrade existed — launched running Windows Mobile 6.5 out of the box, rather than the 6.1-then-later-upgrade path original Diamond2 buyers experienced. Treat it as a closely related sibling with real carrier-driven differences, not a simple US relabeling of the same phone.

HTC Touch Pro2: The Keyboard Sibling

Announced at the same MWC event, the Touch Pro2 was built around a fundamentally different tradeoff: a larger, tilting 3.6-inch WVGA touchscreen above a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard. Where the Diamond2 stayed compact and keyboard-free, the Touch Pro2 targeted buyers who wanted physical typing alongside the same general TouchFLO 3D software family. This isn't a full Touch Pro2 spec breakdown — just a flag that it was the Diamond2's keyboard-equipped contemporary, released on its own separate rollout starting around May 2009.

Touch Diamond2 vs iPhone 3G

By the time the Diamond2 reached shoppers in spring 2009, the iPhone 3G had been on sale for close to a year, with a maturing App Store behind it. The comparison is genuinely mixed: the iPhone 3G offered a larger 3.5-inch capacitive multitouch display, a more finger-native OS built from scratch, and a much larger app catalog, while the Diamond2 countered with microSD expansion, a removable battery, and deeper native Exchange ActiveSync support many businesses already relied on. Neither device is fairly called an outright winner — two different philosophies solving the same touchscreen-smartphone problem.

Touch Diamond2 vs Palm Pre

Palm's Pre launched on Sprint just weeks after the Diamond2 reached unlocked markets, running an entirely new OS, webOS, with a slide-out physical keyboard and genuine background multitasking for third-party apps. The comparison again cuts both ways: the Pre's webOS interface felt more modern and cohesive than TouchFLO 3D's shell-over-an-older-OS approach, but the Diamond2 had a considerably more mature Windows Mobile software ecosystem behind it, plus microSD expansion the Pre's fixed 8GB storage didn't offer. Both phones arrived within months of each other, answering the same iPhone-shaped pressure from different directions.

Touch Diamond2 vs Early Android

Android was still finding its footing in early 2009. HTC itself announced the HTC Magic — a capacitive-touchscreen, keyboard-free Android phone — at the same Mobile World Congress, a day after the Diamond2's unveiling. Set side by side, the Diamond2 carried years of Windows Mobile software maturity and business-app support, while the Magic represented a much younger platform with a thinner app catalog but a more modern touch-first interface underneath — a general comparison point, not a detailed spec match.

What Mobility Today Actually Published

It's worth being direct about what survives of Mobility Today's own Touch Diamond2 coverage, recovered from Wayback Machine archives. The site's article at this URL, titled \"Possible HTC Touch Diamond 2 Europe release date,\" was written by contributor Geoffrey Farinha and posted Saturday, March 28, 2009 — roughly six weeks after HTC's MWC announcement, not coverage of the announcement itself. It's a short news post, not a hands-on review: Mobility Today cited WMExperts.com's report that the Diamond2 might reach European and Asian markets around mid-April 2009 at a speculated price near $600, pointed to a UK retailer's listing showing April 19 availability at 424.99 pounds, and noted the imported unit wouldn't carry US 3G bands. The piece included no original hands-on photography — just a linked thumbnail borrowed from the source article and a stock HTC logo graphic — no video, and had zero reader comments in the earliest archived snapshot. It didn't discuss TouchFLO 3D's refinements, the zoom bar, battery claims, or the WM6.5 upgrade path; those simply weren't part of this post, and this article won't invent hands-on impressions the surviving coverage doesn't contain.

Touch Diamond2's Place in HTC's Pre-Android Era

The Touch Diamond2 arrived at an interesting hinge point for HTC: a genuine, if incremental, refinement of the touch-first Windows Mobile formula the original Diamond introduced — sharper screen, better storage, a friendlier zoom control, deeper TouchFLO 3D integration — released in the same window HTC was quietly building its first Android phones. Within a couple of years, HTC's most ambitious engineering shifted decisively toward Android and HTC Sense, leaving devices like the Diamond2 as a late, polished chapter of the company's Windows Mobile years rather than the start of something new.

FAQ

What was the HTC Touch Diamond2?

A Windows Mobile touchscreen smartphone from HTC, released as the successor to the 2008 Touch Diamond, with a larger WVGA screen, a new zoom bar, a 5-megapixel camera, and microSD expansion.

When was it announced?

February 16, 2009, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, alongside the Touch Pro2.

What was its codename?

Topaz.

What OS did it run?

Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional at launch.

Did it get Windows Mobile 6.5?

Yes, but not immediately — the official free upgrade began rolling out around late October 2009, roughly six to seven months after the phone's April 2009 availability, not as a day-one feature.

How big was the screen?

3.2 inches, at 480x800 WVGA resolution.

Was the screen capacitive or resistive?

Resistive — pressure-based and single-point, not capacitive multitouch like the iPhone.

Did it support microSD?

Yes, via a dedicated microSD slot — a real upgrade over the original Touch Diamond, which had no expandable storage at all.

What camera did it have?

A 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera plus a VGA front-facing camera for video calling.

Did it have GPS?

Yes, integrated GPS with assisted-GPS support.

Did it have Wi-Fi?

Yes, 802.11b/g.

What was TouchFLO 3D?

HTC's tab-based, finger-friendly interface layered over Windows Mobile, refined on the Diamond2 with deeper app integration, new Stock and Calendar tabs, and rearrangeable tabs — distinct from the later HTC Sense interface.

How different was it from the original Touch Diamond?

Meaningfully upgraded: a larger sharper screen, a new zoom bar replacing the original's circle-zoom, a better camera, a bigger battery, and — most practically — microSD expansion the original Diamond lacked entirely.

Was the HTC Pure related?

Yes — AT&T's HTC Pure, released October 2009 in the US, shared the Diamond2's core hardware but used a different body design, dropped the front-facing camera, and launched with Windows Mobile 6.5 already installed.

Is it collectible today?

Among vintage Windows Mobile collectors, yes — condition of the screen, zoom bar responsiveness, battery health, and original packaging all affect value, though the device isn't practical as a daily phone on modern networks.

The HTC Touch Diamond2 never became a defining device the way the original Touch Diamond briefly was, but it's a genuinely useful marker of where HTC's Windows Mobile lineup stood in early 2009 — refined, more complete, and quietly built by a company that was already laying the groundwork for its next platform entirely.