Got a Telus Touch Diamond several weeks ago and have now put it through all its paces. Replaced a UT Starcom 6700 (PPC 6700) that was dying a slow death.

Here's some feedback (for the Telus phone; some items may be different on Sprint's version when it comes out):

SCREEN
Absolutely stunning. 'nuff said.

FORM FACTOR
Terrific, especially after I spent almost 3 years lugging around my old brick.

LACK OF MEMORY CARD SLOT
Shame that there's no memory card slot, though, to be honest, I never removed my 2 GB card from my old 6700, except during the times that it self-ejected. If you are into very heavy multimedia use, this could be a dealbreaker; for general business use and listening to songs occasionally, I think 4GB is enough. The phone does offer very high USB data transfer speeds when put in Disk Drive mode (Settings-Network-USB to PC), instead of ActiveSync mode.

LACK OF KEYBOARD
I really miss my old keyboard when typing messages, but the thin form factor is absolutely wonderful. For those who type alot, you might want to wait for the Pro, if you are willing to put up with a fatter phone.

FEWER BUTTONS
As someone who was used to lots of buttons on his old phone, it's taken me a while to get used to a phone with fewer buttons. I often find it much easier to navigate a phone by using buttons instead of typing on the screen. My solution was to use AE Button Plus (one of my favourite pieces of software!) to remap several of the buttons (Volume Up, Volume Down, Back, and Red Phone Button) to allow for single/double/triple/long clicks. I'm also using MortButtons to create finger-friendly Progam Launcher screens that I activate using the re-mapped volume buttons. Took a while to get it all set up to my liking, but now it works very well, with all my software accessible through just a couple of clicks.

I'm not particularly crazy about the tactile feedback of the buttons at the bottom of the phone, especially the D-Pad. Because the top face is all one piece (with buttons underneath it), it feels a bit flimsy, and it takes some getting used to, especially if using multi-clicks (with AE Button Plus). I predict that gamers will hate the D-Pad. On the plus side, some selected software (like Google Maps) supports "swirls" of the D-Pad to zoom in and out, which is nice.

GPS
Works very well and is quite accurate, but usually takes a few minutes to find satellites from a cold start.

CAMERA
3.2 megapixel camera is quite good. No flash. I miss being able to use my phone as a flashlight with VJCandela.

BATTERY
The battery is removable. Battery life is not great -- I can easily burn through the battery in less than a day with heavy use of the phone (especially GPS and WiFi). I'll probably pick up a spare battery to swap in when necessary.

WIFI and BLUETOOTH
Both seem to work flawlessly so far.

EVDO DATA CONNECTION
Seems to be very fast, especially compared to my old phone. No complaints.

SOFTWARE

1) I used the TouchFLO 3D interfact for about 20 minutes before I disabled it (it's just a Today plugin). It's very flashy, but not all that functional IMHO. Guess I'm too used to old Windows Mobile interface. I also got the impression that the phone runs a little zippier without TouchFLO running in the background. Even without TouchFLO 3D running, many application still support various finger gestures (like swiping) and respond to automatically switch to landscape mode when the phone is turned. The built in "Teeter" game is a very clever use of the accelerometer, and I predict that many more applications will come out soon to take advanatage of this feature.

2) Haven't seen this mentioned in any of the reviews, but that I would point out that it comes with a full version of Microsoft Voice Command that works absolutely perfectly. Hold down the Green Phone Button to activate.

3) Built-in Opera Browser generally works great. Also has PIE, though I rarely use it except in the very few instances when Opera can't open certain pages.

4) Live Search is built-in, but I prefer Google Maps which I installed and works perfectly with built-in GPS.


Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

-mt

Nice review! I had an opportunity to play with a Telus Diamond today while visiting Canada. I did notice that the finger gestures weren't working all that well, but I'm pretty sure the XDA hacks will help with that. Anyway I can't wait until I get my Sprint version.

One thing that irks me about HTC, is that they continue to use the USB port as a headphone jack.

installing a physical 3.5mm jack takes up real estate so this may be why they opted to go against it. on the flip side, the htc HD does have the 3.5mm jack.