HTC Launch O2 XDA Diamond in Germany with TomTom v7!

Darren

Just spotted is HTC's launch in partnership with O2 today of the new XDA Diamond. Nothing remarkable in that, HTC churn out new devices on a regular basis but a close look at the specs of this GPS equipped model reveals something altogether more news worthy.

Apparently the Diamond comes with TomTom Navigator 7 integrated and a single download-able City-map of your choice. Further maps can be bought. As yet we have been unable to elicit more information on this.

In Amsterdam last week I quizzed TomTom on this and whilst their future plans for PocketPC were vague, they did suggest that piracy had been major issue and 'if' any future releases were planned they would most likely only be in partnership with manufacturers.

O2 UK have already indicated the Diamond is coming to these shores and it has a respectable specification including HTC's Touchflo interface:

Windows Mobile 6.1
Triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 900/1800/1900 MHz
Qualcomm 528 MHz CPU
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
WiFi b/g
eGPS
FM Radio
128 MB RAM
256 MB ROM
4 GB flash
2.8" VGA display(640x480)
Front and rear cameras (rear 3.2 Megapixel)

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Darren Griffin

FrequentFlyer · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject:

Darren...so it seems that the rumours I picked up a couple of weeks or so back, were mostly right. But, you mean to tell me that when you were over there, no mention was made of TT6/7 at all ?...find that hard to believe.

Darren · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject:

I have as yet been unable to confirm that it is indeed v7 being pre-installed but as i said above, whilst TomTom wouldn't give a firm NO to future plans for v7 as a standalone product, they were clear that piracy had been a big issue and if it was to appear it would be pre-installed by manufacturers.

I have no inside knowledge of any v7 product, no NDA etc so all I know is what you now know.
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Darren Griffin

dawidgatti · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject:

I can confirm what Darren is saying. we were trying a lot to make them say something. even during the interview that i made whit Luciën Groenhuijzen http://www.vimeo.com/963680 i did try to make him say something about NAVIGATRO 7, but whit no luck.

Kar98 · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 3:24 am Post subject:

Worthless without GSM 850. Sad

mikealder · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 7:31 am Post subject:

Early prices look around £460 for the phone, no mention of software, interestingly the video of the device shows no TomTom installed at all, and if the unit is as buggy as seen in the video Here I will not be wanting one - nice looking unit but the lack of memory card support is too restrictive for me.

If TomTom only intend to ship version 7 software (if it exists) with a new phone of this type then it will sell for a while, but I fear this approach will only fuel the software piracy issue even more. It wouldn't take long for the application to extracted from the phones ROM, if piracy is of major concern they need to revisit the lock down methods employed, the new maps released yesterday for the Go devices are already appearing on certain dubious web sites - Mike

Kar98 · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject:

The less people feel shafted by the company whose product they bought, the less likely they are motivated to resort to "piracy".

Darren · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject:

Kar98 · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject:

Absolutely.
Certain people became rather frustrated for instance when they cheerfully bought TT4 to upgrade the previous version they also bought, only to realize it actually had less features, but was required to use the newer maps they also cheerfully bought, which they then realized weren't really an improvement either.
Remember when TT3 introduced lockups that weren't there in TT2?
Or when they dropped the entire Palm platform and you had to switch to Windows Mobile if you wanted to continue to use TT? And how about when they finally got the maps mostly right in 650.****, only to screw them up again in 675.****? And the fact that despite the fact that you bought a TomTom PND with a memory card slot, you can only legally buy and install those maps on it that would fit into the internal memory anyway (e.g. if you happen to have a TT One 2nd ed., you're only offered the 1GB USA/Canada map, but not the much more detailed North America map that's almost twice that size)
And of course the current Go 9** issue, where even though you bought it because of the multi-region maps and the one year free map update (NOT, mind you, mapshare, but actual map updates, they're now trying to weasel out of this and give you the update for one region only).
Speaking of regions, you can't even buy the stuff at all if you live in certain regions of Europe that are covered by the W&E Europe map ;)

Whine much? Yeah, I didn't have my second cup of coffee yet. So while I certainly neither condone nor support "piracy", I can at least see why some formerly honest users resort to it. That's not to say that there's not a certain amount of users who wouldn't buy it honestly even if it was convenient and cheap. But at least now with navcore 7 and 8, they had to buy at least once ;)

Bartmanekul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 06, 2006 Posts: 23

Needless to say, this means that there is no longer any chance of future versions appearing on symbian. Shame, Id buy it for my 6110, and future nokia GPS enabled phones I plan to get.

As per the blame issue, its the a******s that pirated it left right and center.

While tomtom did indeed play nasty with the mobile community, thats a different subject and not to blame for the vast amount of cracked copies about.

I have just bought a copy of sygic, and trying that out. 6th one I have tried so far for symbian, no-one has it quite right yet.

Goober556 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 26, 2007 Posts: 53

TTN7 confirmed as bundled with the Xda Diamond in Germany. The O2 Germany online shop is listing it.

http://shop2.o2online.de/nw/produkte/handys/allehandys/details/index.html?salesChannel=SHOP&articleId=617&categoryId=1120

Mentions TTN7 near the bottom of the page.

mikealder · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:29 pm Post subject:

Kar98 · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:33 pm Post subject:

mikealder · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject:

It is quite simple, there are other web sites that will actively purchase a fully loaded Diamond and remove/ disassemble the ROM, once this occurs the TomTom Navigator 7 application will be released along with fully cracked maps.

I fail to see the benefit in forcing loyal users of the TomTom PDA package to buy a specific phone that has about the same attraction to me as an iFone. Neither would I want an O2 contracted phone as their data traffic access charges are the highest in the market if you go outside the "free limit" - even when you exceed the bolt on package O2 hammers your pocket, with the iFone O2 even wavered the GPRS access charges to entice customers in the UK.

Perhaps it is time the PDA users and the thousands of PDA Phone users looked elsewhere, the new version of Co-Pilot I have tried and to be honest I find it too slow, the new version of Route 66 I will be looking at once it is made available as I have liked this Nav application for a couple of years - Mike

Goober556 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 26, 2007 Posts: 53

I agree Mike. I think TomTom are using the piracy thing as an excuse.

Its much more likely the real reason is reducing the cost of supporting all the different PDA devices on the market. If they do exclusive deals with network operators then the network operators will be providing the support to end users. Any users calling into TT for support will just be told to call their network operator. I bet that saves TT a lot of money in support costs.

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