Haavard

New "iPhone killer", HTC Touch Diamond, reveals Opera Mobile 9.5 secrets

Friday, 9. May 2008, 10:14:19

A couple of days ago, HTC revealed their new "iPhone killer", the HTC Touch Diamond. The phone looks extremely promising, and I'm actually considering a purchase if they can manage to work out the kinks from the demo version (it seems slow at times). Better yet, the phone uses the new Opera Mobile 9.5 for a "better internet experience".

From 02:23 in following video, you can see Opera in action:

(Link to video on YouTube)

A video from the::unwired also shows off Opera at 06:10 and 03:15.

From these and other videos of the Diamond, you should be able to figure out a thing or two about Opera Mobile 9.5. For example, while it shows pages in a desktop view with no additional text wrapping by default, the text automatically wraps to fit your specified zoom level when zooming in. This could mean a better browser experience than browsers that don't wrap at all, or that wrap already when zoomed out (like Opera Mini).

Now, before anyone asks what's going on with the public beta of Opera Mobile 9.5, I'm afraid I have no further details on that, but hopefully the Opera Mobile team will be able to publish an update in the near future.

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Comments

deadHarlequin # 9. May 2008, 11:24

Nice! The first phone btw I can consider a nice iPhone competitor, until now I was surprised by the lack of serious answers by the rest market players.

Haavard, do you still licence Opera Mobile or you have switched to(or think to switch to) other profit gaining schemes? Although I ll never argue about Opera's ASA technical capacity, considering Google/mozilla mobile browsers will be free, the cheapness of a product will play a major role in its success. Do you have any insights to share on this?

haavard # 9. May 2008, 14:21

I don't think we have made any announcements on how Opera Mobile 9.5 will be licensed. I'm pretty sure HTC has to pay for it, though

Anonymous # 9. May 2008, 15:45

Anonymous writes:

this phone is not going to threaten iPhone. it is a nice technology, wraped in quite elegant packaging, but it cerainly lacks that feel and style of iPhone.

and besides total geeks nobody knows about this phone. so it is going to be sell to execs as their company phone and nothing more.. it looks awfuly pricey too

given that you can get new iphone for about 300 cheap dollars, and then do with it everything you want I seriously doubt that it is going to dethrone iPhone.

btw. this phone is ugly..
btw2. if it can interact with Youtube, so that means that youve fixed problem with new youtube player?

deadHarlequin # 10. May 2008, 00:13

haha, fair enough! (I hope you licence it cheaper than your words though!

)

anon: The youtube you saw was a different app.

haavard # 10. May 2008, 08:18

I don't know if it's going to threaten the iPhone, but that's what "everyone" is saying

And yes, the Diamond is a bit expensive, but there's a lot of neat technology in that little box. It beats the iPhone on quite a few areas "on paper", but it remains to be seen how it is in actual use.

I disagree that it's ugly. It looks extremely good!

Anonymous # 22. August 2008, 17:54

Anonymous writes:

This IS NOT A Iphone KILLER it is though a wallet killer

Anonymous # 8. September 2008, 16:33

Anonymous writes:

wallet killer, oh really. got mine for free on a low tariff contract (£15/month)