Apple iPhone vs. HTC Touch Pro Diamond

VS.

HTC just entered a new contender in its bout to beat the iPhone. Like first there was MacBook and then MacBook Pro, first it was the HTC Touch, now it's the HTC Touch Pro.

The smartphone formerly known, alternately, as the HTC Raphael and the T-Mobile Vario IV, HTC announced the Touch Pro on June 5, and seems set on marketing it as the HTC Touch Diamond.

Whatever you prefer to call it, it features an improved and waaayyyyyy more user-friendly GUI (graphic user interface) than that of its operating system, the super-potent (though not yet omnipotent) OS with the not-so-super GUI, Windows Mobile. Not only that, but it's the latest version of WinMo, Windows Mobile 6.1 that you get to enjoy even better with the superior TouchFlo interface (and its customizable!). TouchFlo 3D, one of the greatest of the new innovations, gives you capabilities akin to Apple's Cover Flow browsing.

By comparison, the iPhone operating system still needs a little work, but it's got one of the best, most user-touch screen interfaces around. In fact, it can easily be argued that, as is par for the course for an Apple product, it has the benchmark-setting GUI. That said, this latest HTC Touch is creeping closer to meeting that mark.

The HTC Diamond also features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, something the iPhone noticeably lacks (though the iPhone's touch screen QWERY keyboard seems perfectly adequate). The HTC device is smaller than the iPhone, which is nice for compactness, but it also makes for a smaller screen size, made smaller by the extra buttons on the face's bottom, unlike the iPhone's singular do-all button. Interestingly enough, however, the HTC Touch Pro has a higher resolution, 480 x 640 to the iPhone's 480 x 320.

The HTC Diamond has half to a quarter the built-in memory of the iPhone (depending on whether you're looking at the 8 gig or 16 gig model), though the iPhone has 64 megs less handset RAM.

HTC beats Apple clear and away in the camera department, though, with its 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, autofocus, and editing capabilities. The iPhone is a 2.0 megapixel camera with none of that other stuff. And just like iPhone, you can switch between viewing pictures in portrait or landscape mode with the HTC. Plus, the Diamond, unlike the iPhone, has a second phone on the front for video calling.

Search for the HTC Diamond on the web right now and you'll surely come across the phrase "iPhone Killer". Is it? Only the one true test will tell, and as we all know that's…the bottom line (the modern successor to the true test of time).

Ultimately, though, preference for one over the other will no doubt boil down to the same factor it always does with these things: Mac vs. PC. Take your pick.