Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal has “reviewed” the as yet unreleased Sprint version of the HTC Touch Diamond. Like Walt Mossberg, she often talks about the iPhone instead and doesn’t spend much time learning the actual merits of the phone nor giving much reasoning to support her opinions. For example:

“Yet like the iPhone, it relies solely on an on-screen keyboard for all text entries. Even with the Diamond’s stylus, the keyboard felt small and cramped. Using just your fingertips was next to impossible.”

Apparently, she didn’t realize that the Diamond actually includes about 7 software input methods that you can switch to based on your preference. She must have been using only the Full Qwerty keyboard as opposed to the more finger-friendly Compact Qwerty or Phone Keypad options.

“It reminded me of the brown paper bag book covers my Dad helped me make for schoolbooks when I was a kid: They looked great on the outside, felt sturdy and clean and created a blank canvas for homemade doodles that were often more interesting to me than the books they covered. But my book covers couldn’t change what was underneath; pages of frustrating algebra were just a flip away.”

Wow! Is she saying that mathematics and intelligent problem solving capabilities is bad? Maybe she would like a childrens’ pop-up book instead. Perhaps something she can color with crayons?

“Unlike the iPhone, Web sites that are opened on the Diamond’s browser don’t resemble the actual site as you would see it on your computer. I opened CNN.com and WSJ.com, two sites that are packed with text and graphics on a regular browser. On the Diamond, they quickly were rendered in list format with mostly text-only.”

Did Sprint change Opera’s default mode to Mobile view? They must have. It’s too bad the reviewer didn’t notice the settings page. She probably couldn’t understand Opera’s ambiguous icon interface. I can sympathize with that.