As shown in Figure 13, the back of phone is faceted like a diamond, which is where the phone gets its name. The facets are very subtle and don’t interfere with the phones functionality.  In Figure 13 you can also see the camera as it is placed in one of the triangle-shaped facets. As shown in Figure 14, the entire back of the phone slides off to reveal the battery and the microSD port which holds cards up to 16 GB.

click to enlarge
Figure 13: The back of the Diamond.

click to enlarge
Figure 14: The back uncovered.

This Diamond is good for music. You can select by songs artist, album, playlist, genres, composers. Cover art is displayed. The sound quality of the built-in speakers is okay, but not at all impressive. If you want to listen to music you will probably want to listen through Bluetooth headphones or to deal with wired earphones which will require the ungainly adapter shown previously in Figure 8.

The 3.2 megapixel camera has an excellent autofocus that makes pictures more presentable than many other phones. The phone can also capture short videos. You can view the photos as a slideshow, in a row on the screen, or you can flip through them using the TouchFLO 3D interface which lets you view them in a nifty visual presentation.

Email is easy to set up and even easier to use. We loved the ability to flip through the mail with the TouchFLO 3D interface. We also like the fact that on email screen the user sees a different envelope for each email account they have set up. The included software allowed the phone to synch seamlessly with Outlook.

The Diamond comes with Opera Mobile 9.5, which is a much better mobile browser than Internet Explorer. We found it very useable, much like Safari on the iPhone. It does not have flash in the browser, but it does have a Youtube application that lets you play YouTube videos.

You can drag the web browser screen around with your finger. A double-click allows you to zoom in and out. You can also use the circular pad on the front of the Diamond to control the zoom.

The Diamond has a built-in GPS, but uses VZ Navigator for GPS guided directions. This is better than using Google Maps, but it costs $10 extra a month. The GPS was locked into using Navigator, so we were unable to use it with Google Maps.

Many Windows Mobile applications like Microsoft Office Mobile will run on the Diamond. It also has Microsoft Exchange synchronization, but the variety of applications does not come close to those in the Apple iPhone app store.

The Verizon Diamond supports Instant Messaging, as well as SMS and MMS. It also has voice dialing and WiFi.

The battery life is better than most other Windows Mobile devices. It lasted an entire day of what we consider normal use. Power users will have to purchase an extra battery pack, but at least that option is available unlike the iPhone with its non-replaceable battery.