Live from HTC’s London Press Event!
Alright, people! We’ve touched down in London and we’re starting to head to HTC’s special press event. We’ll update this shortly from the venue.
11:16 AM: We’re still waiting…
11:20 AM: Only a small amount of people here…not including the 100 HTC employees, of course.
11:30 AM: Still waiting…looks like there is a delay.
11:39 AM: A lot more press peeps just showed up — not our kind — the traditional media folks.
11:45 AM: Looks like it’s the HTC Touch Diamond. No surprises here. The goodie bags all say "HTC Touch Diamond".
11:49 AM: Finally they are letting press in!
11:50 AM: We’ve pretty much confirmed Android will not be making an appearance here. Mmm.
11:52 AM: We’re seated. Cheesy music playing.
12:01 PM: HTC CEO Peter Chou is on stage.
12:02 PM: He’s introducing some VP’s.
12:03 PM: "More than 3 million HTC Touchs sold."
12:04 PM" "Phones are difficult to use. You sometimes have to press 20 buttons."
12:07 PM: HTC Touch Diamond. 4GB internal memory.
12:09 PM: It has a 3D animated touchscreen experience
12:10 PM: "More emotion."
12:11 PM: "Breakthrough in innovation." The HTC Touch Diamond has HSDPA/HSDPU
12:13 PM: It’s a "perfect form factor. Not too big, not too small."
12:15 PM: He just said the design is museum-worthy. We’ll be the judge of that, fella.
12:16 PM: Showing off the phone’s interface now.
12:17 PM: Looks like HTC heavily customized the interface.
12:18 PM: This is actually pretty cool. We’re getting excited.
12:20 PM: Well, there’s definitely an accelorometer in here!
12:22 PM: Here’s what we’ve been waiting for — the internet browsing…
12:23 PM: This definitely doesn’t look like Pocket Internet Explorer. You can touch content in the browser and it comes up in almost a text editor for easier reading.
12:24 PM: Sort of like Mobile Safari, in a way.
12:24 PM: Web browser also rotates when device is tilted.
12:25 PM: HTC worked with Google to deveop a "killer YouTube experience." One touch YouTube access. Scroll through videos like the iPhone with elastic scrolling. Nice, it has VGA display and YouTube looks awesome.
12:26 PM: Marketing spin: "HTC Touch Diamond is Just Like Your Life." What, sad and lonely?
12:28 PM: Vice President of HTC Europe speaking now. The phone will be available through all key operating partners. All 5 main networks in the U.K. — wow.
12:29 PM: Available in Europe and Asia in June. Rest of the world is later this year. What. In. The. Hell?
12:30 PM: "Operator-specific versions will be coming and will have key services and features from each specific partner." They’re talking about the ability to work with they’re partners, etc.
12:31 PM: "Unique Orange Flavor." Executive VP of Orange taking the stage now. He just said "a truely cool and exciting device."
12:34 PM: Orange TV with 61 channels will be available on Touch Diamond. This is getting really boring.
12:36 PM: Peter Chou is back on stage.
12: 37 PM: Peter just said HTC screws up sometimes but they work hard to try and improve.
12:40 PM: HTC Touch Diamond is the first device to launch with Windows Mobile 6.1
12:42 PM: The new head of Microsoft Mobile Communications, Andy Lee, is on stage.
12:43 PM: 11 million Windows Mobile devices sold last year, blah blah.
12:44 PM: Oh my god. We came all the way here for one phone. Where is my slide-out keyboard, damn it!
12:45 PM: Peter Chou - "I believe the HTC Touch Diamond will change how people interact with their phone."
12:46 PM: Think they are wrapping it up now. Nope. Question time!
12:47 PM: Someone just asked the Microsoft dude why Opera was used as the browser on the Touch Diamond. He said because Windows Mobile browser 6 is coming soon and isn’t done yet. "It will be the richest mobile browser experience." Yeah, whatevz dude!
12:50 PM: People are asking about iPhone comparisons and texting and the keyboard. Touchscreen keyboard! Come on, guys! No 3.5mm headset jack. It still used the USB jack. Wack.
12:53 PM: An "8-21% improvement in battery life with Windows Mobile 6.1." Uh, what kind of range is that, people?
12:54 PM: Aaaaand the lights went out. Think it’s over.
12:55 PM: Wow a 900mAh battery. That will last a good 6 minutes.
12:56 PM: Price point? Too early to tell…based on operator.
1:00 PM: That’s it! On to the demo.
Can’t wait! Try to get something on Andoird from the PR folks.
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Still holding out hope that they’ll slide in HTC Dream info… I mean the Diamond is cool and all but as far as earth shattering announcements go I think Android would be more suitable for the hype they’ve put into this.
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Welcome to the UK BGR.
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I am growing inpatient. The Firefox :30-second auto-refresh proves to be a worthy adversary. Hey… BGR… where is the bond-like video camera gizmo carefully threaded into the fabric of your jacket so we can watch this live beside you? It’s 6am here (Maryland) and this coffee is barely keeping me awake.
Hehe… can’t wait to read your post. Seems you’re the only one with next-to-live coverage so thanks for the upcoming news!
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Don’t worry — it’s coming! We’re about to add in our live stream. We’ll see how that one works out…
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11:45 AM: Looks like it’s the HTC Touch Diamond. No surprises here. The goodie bags all say “HTC Touch Diamond”…
Was it worth the flight? That’s pretty disappointing for an announcement that was supposed to “change the world” or whatever the hell they said. Couldn’t they have done this at CTIA or something instead of tricking us into thinking they actually had something revolutionary to announce?
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I am very disappointed. We already know everything about the Diamond, and not even a PHOTO of the Dream.
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Starting to feel the Raphael could actually be better than the Xperia…
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The Diamond is being demoed on You Tube:
youtube . com / htc
Don’t know when it started. I was looking for a live broadcase of the event.
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I hate all the marketing cliches and euphamisms, but that doesn’t detraft from the fact that Diamond sounds great. I’m ready for some official pics now.
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HTC is also uploading videos of the Diamond and TouchFLO 3d on YouTube: Here
Looks really nice. Personnaly, I’m partial to Raphael myself. I need the full keyboard.
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True, the Diamond sounds great. It does. It deserved an announcement of it’s own. But I don’t think it was worth the trip, at all. Too bad about the Dream.
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12:46 AM: Think they are wrapping it up now. Nope. Question time!
Ask them if next time they can just say, “we are announcing our Android Phone” so that you know not to travel all the way to Europe if they are doing a run of the mill phone launch.
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“Peter just said HTC screws up sometimes but they work hard to try and improve.”
That’s what I told my girlfriend, but she still left me for an iPhone.
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ASK WHEN IN USA?
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LOL @ “Available in Europe and Asia in June. Rest of the world is later this year. What. In. The. Hell?” Exactly, bastards!
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with all the pre-event hype, it makes me wonder if something became pulled from the agenda - like android.
i wonder about the battery on the diamond - what have people read / heard?
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Wow BGR. Thanks for being negative and trying to reign on the parade of us HTC fanboys.
Do you like anything?
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Negative? Dude we flew half way around the world for a single phone.
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The only upcoming phones I would consider doing that for (besides the Dream) are the Nokia Tube and… actually I think that’s it since the Instinct cat is out of the bag. And still… those don’t touch (pun unintended) an Android Phone.
The first Android Phone announcement is literally the start of a revolution. This was another iClone phone announcement. I’m a Voyager guy but still… I mean cmon…
The comment of 0157h7 and BGR response reminds me of Dave Chapelle’s skit about P. Diddy’s “Making The Band” where he mocks P. Diddy making them cross the Brooklyn Bridge for a piece of pie… This time forcing the group to go fetch him some Cambodian Breast Milk
Random, I know, but my humor is a “little off” in general. Hehe.
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USB headphone jack? Yuck.
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One f’ing phone? Phone won’t be released till later this year in the U.S. Since they won’t put a date for the US market but will for the Europe market my guess will be September….WTF???
What is the point in all the hype if we have to wait so long for the phone to hit? I mean seriously.
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Not even a Titanium or Raphael announcement. This is more disappointing than I thought.
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yeah 900mAh batt? yeah. try watching slingbox over 3G. Ittl last all but 5 minutes. I just went back to blackberry.. wont go back to winmo until someone can come out with a winmo phone with decent batt life.
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1 phone that we knew about already, same gay usb headdphone jack, battery that we all know won’t last longer than 4 hours MAX, and to top it off they’re shafting the states on launch…the battle is still between: 3g iphone, 9000, and xperia. HTC just took themselves out of the contender’s race….
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