At Giz Gallery, Tom alerted us to a serious problem with HTC Touch Diamonds: After a few minutes, the backlight becomes permanently dim, making the phone unusable, and there is no fix yet.
Tom’s unlocked Touch Diamond that he showed us was a sad little brick, barely readable, and absolutely impossible to use in the daylight. Interestingly, according to the mod wizards at XDA, the issue doesn’t appear to be a hardware cock-up—it’s apparently a firmware problem that HTC has yet to fix. Modder efforts have also been unsuccessful, since a standard firmware flash seems to leave the problematic code untouched.
Worse, HTC’s support system is broken as well. They’re not able to fix the phones, and have been directing users to deal with carriers—which leaves people with unlocked phones effectively screwed. Tom was simply told to buy a new one, even though his is just a few months old, and, you know, an unlocked Diamond costs several hundred dollars. BTW, Sprint Diamond owners, how are things on your end? I suspect this issue might be behind the delays there.
This stupid backlight problem illustrates two seemingly contradictory points about today’s tech. We live in a beta culture that leaves us constantly waiting for updates and fixes to crappy firmware and software shoved out the door, and that it’s safer than ever to buy first-gen hardware, since refinements in design and manufacturing mean most of the problems we run into as early adopters are the kind that can be updated or patched.
Not that this makes it any less goddamn infuriating. Fix your ducking phones, HTC. [XDA Developers - Thanks Tom]
Seeker
December 9, 2008 at 6:17 PM
Read the referenced thread. People flash their phone with hacked firmware, and it doesn’t work properly. Well, they took the risk and this is the result.
Report PermalinkNothing wrong with the HTC Diamond, just people who think that loading unauthorised software whould never cause problems.
i-web
August 18, 2009 at 7:19 PM
@seeker
you should research /make your homework a bit more intensive.i have the same problem too.
i am a fan and member of xda-developers.com.
Report Permalinki flashed HTC mobile phones over 100 of times and never have this issue. currently i have a client HTC Diamond in front of me with exact the same issue. 4 days working. it looks like a virgin and never saw anythings else then a charger cable and a single SIM card. how you explain this ? my online connection to xda-developers ?
HTC USER
December 14, 2008 at 3:25 PM
Please do not blame it on the Hacked firmware. THE HARDWARE IS CRAP. Simply shitty. I have heard that people in india about 3 to 5 years ago with QTEK phones they were having simillar problems. It is caused because of the HOT temperature of your country or simply where you keep your phone. DIamond should have FANS.LOL
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