The HTC Diamond wins hands down against the Touch Cruise/Orbit 2.

to name a few:

smaller dimensions - just 11mm thick

640x480 VGA screen

faster processor

new generation TouchFlo

4GB of built in memory

infact, AFAIK there is only one point to the Orbit 2 over the forthcoming HTC Diamond - the Orbit 2 has a memory card slot.

I currnetly have the XDA Orbit and when I went to the O2 shop to check out the XDA Orbit 2 it had a slide out keyboard. Also you can get a better deal at Orange for the HTC TYTN 2 than at O2, and at least they don't talk down to or about geeks, the way O2 has.

How short your memory is Reg to allow this bit of fluff to make it to press after the way they talked about your readers.

I'll never get an XDA again.

You can't turn the buggers off! I've spend the day using the WiFi hard and my battery is almost out. With a normal phone, you'd perhaps turn it off, and turn it on again if you need to make a call.

With a Windows based XDAs - no can do. You can put it in standby, but that battery life is still trickling away. Taking the battery out makes no difference - your phone is now almost useless until you take it back to your docking station.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a serious problem? Or has this been fixed?

The Orbit 2, does not have a slide out keyboard. The TyNT 2 does (XDA Stellar). Otherwise, they are very simliar phones.

More shocking than that, and I'm surprised TheReg did not mention this, is the fact the the Orbit 2, like other Polaris phones, has a GPU but HTC have yet to release drivers for this - as a result, graphics acceleration blows on the Orbit 2. This doesn't just effect games, but also video playback. Having said that... allegedly, drivers are on the way for the TyNT 2, and that uses the same GPU, so someone from xda-developers will hopefully have a fix soon.

PH... cause she like the Orbit 2, is pretty to look at.

"Sadly, O2 has seen fit to have dispense with the HTC home screen."

Theres a whole community out there dedicated to modding these phones, they'll have this fixed in no time, just google for xda developers and ye shall find.

I don't know what you guys were doing with the battery (probably safest not to ask) but I can easily go from 5pm Friday evening to 9am Monday morning without charging mine. Granted, I never leave bluetooth or WiFi on (no need, I have profile switchers that turn them on and off when I need them) but still, 2 hours compared to more than 60 hours is a bit of a difference!

Anyway, it's a brilliant device and I would highly recommend it to anyone without a bluetooth car kit. As someone mentions above, MS stick to the bluetooth standards (weird or what?) which means their devices don't support any of the Nokia or SE customisations required by lots of car kits.

As for the Diamond - pah! 4GB? I have an 8GB card in my device and it's already full. 4GB is pathetic in a high-end phone these days. Surely they should be increasing the memory, not going backwards!

Diamond/3G Iphone/Android/whatever. You can wait for the rest of your life and there'll always be better technology.

Personally, I can't see anything with the O2 Orbit 2 that's better than the TyTNII, so why would anyone go for the former?

As for the guy who said Orange do a better deal, I hope you don't want to download anything - have you seen their data rates? :-o

Press and hold the power button and a dialogue box asks if you want to switch the device off Yes/No.

Probably a bit late now, but if you press and hold the power-button on a WM device, you get the option to reset or power off. That's ANY wm device - including the original XDAs.

It WAS in the manual and, in fairness, is the same process used by any Nokia or SE phone I've ever had so could hardly be described as obscure.

I have a O2 XDA Orbit and I can turn it off by holding the stand-by button for about 5-10 seconds at which point a window pops up and asks if I wish to turn the phone off. No issue there.

I just wish that either this XDA Orbit 2 or the TYTN 2 was able to come with a Linux install instead of Windows. Would be a lot more willing to do an upgrade and get a new contract then.

Windows Mobile phone, Windows XP Pro SP2 workstation at work, Windows XP64 SP2 at home, Windows XP Pro SP2 at home, and a Linux box. Only machine to recognize my phone when plugged in through USB is the Linux box unless I install some extra software. Yeah for MS compatibility.

I'm an idiot :(

Just got home and checked. Nope XDA IIs won't turn off. Holding down power button enables/disables backlight. Holding down "end call" will put in sleep mode, but there's no way to turn the device off.

Never seen a popup asking to turn device off.

Looks like the new Orbit has had at least one improvement made to it ;)

I am not so sure that the majority of Touch/TytnII users are really going to give too much of a toss about the whole lack of video acceleration. OK, some users may find it helpful if all HTC's MSM7200 and MSM7500 Qualcomm based handsets actually had the ATi Imageon hardware and drivers but at the end of the day HTC have never said their handsets do come thus equipped and I for one can't wait for the folks (folk?) at htcclassaction.org to try to sue HTC for not including something they have never claimed to include in the first place.

As for going before the beak to define the phrase "a rich multi-media experience" as used in an advert, good bloody luck.

Let's face it is, if hi-def video is your bag why the hell are you buying a handset with such a frankly very, very average screen as the Touch family?

Reading htcclassaction you would thing the lack of video acceleration and drivers makes the handsets unusable - does it cock, nothing wrong with my TyTn II. Hard not to come to the conclusion that the lads at htcclassaction need to get our more or maybe find a girlfriend, or maybe both!

If you buy an HTC handset and think the video playback is shit just take it back, get a refund and buy something else. Simple.

Fair play to the Reg if HTC actually claimed their handsets had wonders and shit miracles video drivers I guess they would have mentioned their absence -I'd love my TyTn to add 6 inches to the length of my knob, but it doesn't - not HTC's fault though.

From page 6 of the XDA 2 user guide;

"Power button - Press to turn off the display temporarily. To turn off the power, press and hold for about 5 seconds. For more information, see “Starting Up” in this chapter"

Found here;

http://www.my-xda.com/pdf/quick_user_guide/Detailed_XdaII_UserGuide.pdf

The orbit 2 works in an identical way, as others have already said.

God knows why you're having such trouble.

I got my mits on the Orbit II as soon as I could, following my happy experience with its predecessor. I can say whole-heartedly that this is the best phone I've ever had - the only faults that I can pick are the poor WM6 user interface, low camera quality and a tinny loudspeaker. However, there is many improved interfaces out there which one can run on top of WM - in my opinion, PointUi is by far the best. I'm sure that anyone serious about taking photos would invest in a decent digital camera, and the tinny loudspeaker, well I think I can deal with that.

As Nima stated want photos by a digi cam. The boys all talked about the N95 great camera. I got the Orbit instead, bought a EOS400D for pictures.