It seems that HTC may be up to its old tricks again. With the release of the TyTN II–dubbed the Tilt on AT&T–it seemed that the tech world discovered that the maker skimped on licensing Qualcomm’s drivers, causing deteriorated video and graphics performance on the handheld and resulting in angry consumers. With the new Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, and possibly Touch HD, it seems that HTC may still continue its trend of not licensing the proper drivers to enable graphics-accelerated performance. WMExperts uncovered some interesting tidbits regarding the performance of the new, popular Touch devices.

1. The video above shows an HTC Tornado clocked at 180 MHz performing better than the Touch Pro at 500+ Mhz in processor speed.

2. XDA-Developers forum members compared the frame rates for different devices with the following results:

Test performed on same video, with coreplayer 1.2.5, and optimal settings for each device:

Please bare in mind that the Universal is a three years old device with only 64MB ram, while Touch pro is brand new and 288MB ram! They have same clock speed but Touch pro is supposed to have a better/newer chipset then the Universal!

3. Video below shows Quake running on the Touch Pro. It seems pretty slow, especially compared against other devices like the Dell Axim X51V or Nokia N82.

While the evidence above compiled by WMExperts does not conclusively indicate that HTC didn’t optimize the Touch series for the best graphics and video performance, it does show some slow downs from a modern device. What do you think? Did HTC skimp and cut some corners? Are you happy with your new toy from HTC?