1. With the Touch Diamond2 switched off, press the volume up and down buttons simultaneously.

2. Keeping them pressed, use the stylus to briefly press the red soft reset button (you’ll have to remove the back of the Diamond2 to do this).

3. Release the volume buttons when a message flashes up to say, “This operation will delete all your personal data, and reset all settings to manufacturer default. Press VolUp to restore manufacturer default, or press other keys to cancel.”

4. Press the volume up button.

Then sit back and relax while Windows Mobile 6.1 goes on its voyage of discovery to set up the device with the default factory settings.

When HTC launched the Touch Diamond (pictured on the right), just before the iPhone 3G, it was clear that the software was far from polished. The new TouchFlo 3D interface was intended to offer Windows Mobile fans (and Apple haters) the chance to benefit from touch-related delights similar to that of Apple’s iPhone, without having to go out and line Steve Jobs’ pockets.

But, as with so many Windows Mobile-based handsets, while the front end looked nice and the hardware impressed, it just didn’t come together as a coherent whole. The software was sluggish and frustrating to use and, more importantly, just didn’t mask Windows Mobile effectively enough.

It’s good to see, then, that with its latest phones – the Touch HD and now the second generation Touch Diamond2 (on the left in the photo above) – it’s started to focus more on the software than the hardware. So, while the core hardware and specifications remain the same (with just a few cosmetic and practical improvements) TouchFlo 3D has undergone a dramatic overhaul.

Slowly but surely, HTC has been transforming its UI into a snappier, more usable product. Here, it still suffers from the odd pause, but nothing like as bad as with the original, and – more importantly – most users will now hardly ever have cause to experience the pain of trying to operate the fiddly, old-fashioned Windows Mobile interface with a finger.

Indeed, with the introduction of a proper substitute for the Windows Mobile Calendar view, the contact detail screen (including text messaging and phone call history pages) and – at last – the alarm and clock screens, TouchFlo 3D is no longer the thin veneer that it once was – more timber cladding this time around.

The start menu is, finally, no more – touch the Windows symbol in the top left corner of the screen (or the new Windows button below it) and it’s replaced instead with the now-ubiquitous program grid view.

And those small hardware improvements are also worth having. It’s a slightly larger, heavier phone than the original, but this is compensated for by a larger 3.2in, higher resolution WVGA (480 x 800) screen and a battery with significantly higher capacity. The back is now flat, a microSD slot now replaces the 4GB of non-expandable memory that the original boasted and the camera resolution has gone up to five megapixels.

It’s a shame that the same cannot be said for Windows Mobile – the underlying platform is still Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 – and HTC hasn’t quite darned all the holes in its rather ragged socks. You still fall into it when adding a new calendar entry, for instance, and while using the File Explorer tool.

HTC told us that owners will have the chance to upgrade to 6.5 for free when it becomes available, but from what we’ve seen this still isn’t going to be the step forward that Windows mobile so desperately needs.

We’ll be posting a full review, complete with battery life figures and a final verdict early next week, but the early signs are good. Let’s hope the Touch Pro2 and Magic, when they arrive, keep up the good work.

Digging through my drawers, what did I unearth? None other than my old HTC Touch, and I have to admit to falling in love with it all over again. Because, unlike the Diamond, it’s not incredibly annoying!

Why? First of all, and more important than anything else on a phone, the interface is simpler and more effective. No fancy flow effects might mean it’s less beautiful to behold than the Diamond (and its physical design is certainly more mundane), but it’s so much quicker to get to a favourite application – two presses rather than making a succession of gestures that look great on demos but are a pain in the arse in real life.

And I’m really not missing 3G (if I did, the HTC Touch 3G is now available). Admittedly, I don’t spend much of my time on the internet when using a phone, but when I do head over to BBC Sport or Facebook Mobile I find them no slower on the Touch than I did on the Diamond.

Likewise I’ve never really found a use for fancy features the Diamond includes over the original Touch, such as GPS, and frankly – for me at least – a lower-res screen of 240 x 320 is perfectly acceptable in return for slightly longer battery life.

I do realise that phones are a matter of personal preference, and I’d love to hear from anyone who actually likes the Diamond. Somehow, though, I don’t expect to get much response.

If you keep close tabs on the smartphone scene – and PC Pro’s reviews section – you’ll know that we weren’t too impressed with HTC’s response the iPhone 3G, the Touch Diamond a couple of months ago.

We liked the fact that it buried most of Windows Mobile’s ugliness under an attractive, finger-friendly touchscreen interface, and we liked its fantastic VGA screen. We were also keen on its fantastic web browser – Opera Mobile 9.5.

But we hated its sluggish performance. The whole point of touchscreen interfaces is that they should be responsive, but this was anything but. Hit a control on screen and, like as not, you’d have to wait a second or so before anything actually happened. It was one of the most frustrating phones we’ve ever had the displeasure to use.

Would the same issues afflict its big brother – the Touch Pro, which arrived in the Labs today?

Essentially this is a Touch Diamond with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard bolted on, and a few other tweaks, but initial impressions are good. Responsiveness is up, despite the phone boasting the same 528MHz processor. Perhaps the increased RAM, up from 192MB to 288MB is responsible for this.

The battery capacity has also been increased from 900mAh to 1,340mAh, which should result in longer periods between charges, but it’s not as dramatic an upgrade as we’d hoped for.

Elsewhere it looks a solid handset. Features are, as you’d expect from a flagship HTC phone, second to none, with fast HSDPA mobile data (for speeds of up to 7.2Mb/sec), a three-megapixel camera (this time with an LED flash) and VGA video phone, a GPS receiver, Bluetooth 2.0 an, of course, 802.11bg Wi-Fi.

Build quality seems excellent too – the Pro has a decent heft to it, and the sliding mechanism is smooth and the the keyboard it reveals seems of decent quality too. It’s also worth noting that HTC has done away with the nasty, glossy plasticky rear of the Diamond, replacing it instead with a thicker panel covered in rubbery, soft-touch black plastic.

One disappointintment is that it’s a very chunky, phone, measuring 18mm thick. We were expecting something a little more svelte.

But the thing that took our breath away wasn’t the looks or the build quality it was finding out how expensive this phone is. SIM free, it’s set to cost a whopping £451 (exc VAT). Is it worth it? Can any phone be worth spending that much money on? Be sure to check back at the beginning of next week, after we’ve given it a thorough going over, to find out…

I’ve been using the HTC Touch as my regular phone for over a year, so I won’t deny it. I jumped up and down a bit, such was my excitement to hear about the new “improved” version – the HTC Touch Diamond. And I was almost buzzing with anticipation when it arrived in the office yesterday.

But I’ll be honest. My first few experiences with the phone have dampened my ardour. It looks quite nice, with its diamondesque back and glass-dominated front, but it’s so slow it makes a British tennis player look nippy around the court.

For example, the 3D animated menus don’t keep up with your commands – there’s a full half-second lag on occasion. When you try and use Windows Mobile rather than HTC’s TouchFLO interface it’s also slow. In fact, everything’s slow.

There are lots of nice touches that may yet win me round. The built-in gyroscopic accelerometer, which detects whether the screen should be in portrait or landscape mode (and the clever marbles-down-the-hole game that HTC has bundled to show it off).

The web browser, based on Opera Mobile, which makes viewing websites a pleasure. The already-mentioned TouchFLO interface, which means you hardly need to use Windows Mobile at all anymore (an improvement we desperately called for when originally reviewing the Touch). The rather nice on-screen keyboard.

Look out for the in-depth review later this week.