The HTC 8X Windows Phone is one of three flaghsip devices for the new OS. Justin Williams gauges how it measures up to the competition in an increasingly-crowded sector.
I've always had a soft spot for HTC's phones. The Taiwanese company was among the first to bring a touchscreen smartphone to the UK and was an early trailblazer for Android back in 2007. Its HD7 was an understated but worthy competitor when pitched against Nokia's colourful Lumia range in the small group of devices that ran Windows Phone 7. And, of course, it sold container-ship loads of Android devices up until 2011 when sales – thanks to aggressive marketing by Samsung – began to fall off a cliff.
So there's a lot riding on the 8X for HTC. Again it's up against a big brash phone from Nokia in the form of the Lumia 920 which seems to have a Frankenstorm marketing effort behind it as well as a flagship Windows phone from Samsung. It may not be a make-or-break device but we should not underestimate how important it is for HTC that this phone holds its own against the Lumia.
Hardware
The bald specs may suggest that the 8X isn't anything special but let's make no mistake here – this is an absolutely gorgeous phone. From its unibody design with its polycarbonate back through to a fabulous 4.3" LCD 2 screen, the 8X oozes quality. At 10.6mm it is thicker than both an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy SIII. But the 8X has tapered edges giving it a good grip and making it feel as slim as both the Apple and Samsung flagships. The phone isn't especially light but it sits evenly in the hand and the polycarbonate makes the hard plastic finish of the SIII and HTC's own One X feel cheap and slippery by comparison. Only the iPhone beats it in terms of design quality.
The physical buttons on the 8X – the power button on the top and the rocker and camera switches on the side – as well as the camera and flash are all flush with the body giving the phone a smooth profile whatever the viewing angle and HTC has reverted to placing the micro USB port on the phone's base rather on the side as with the One series.
Our review phone came in California Blue and the 8X will also be available in black, red and yellow
The phone is sealed so there's no access to the 1,800mAh battery but we had no issues here getting a full day of high usage out of it in contrast to the One X which was a great phone badly let down by its battery life.
What will almost certainly be an issue, though, is that the 8X comes with only 16GB of storage on board and no microSD slot (Windows Phone 8 does not support this). HTC points to the free 7GB of Skydrive storage giving an 8X user the ability to stream music to the device ignoring the reality for most of us who spend much of our lives outside 3G or WiFi zones. With the iPhone 5 offering up to 64GB and even the Lumia 920 having 32GB on board, one really has to question what astral plane HTC’s design team were on when they plumped for such a parsimonius amount of memory.
If your previous experience with Windows phones stretches only to Phone 7 then you’ll find the 8X quick… very quick. It opens apps, renders web pages and fires up the camera at near light speed compared to, say, the Nokia Lumia 900 or even an iPhone 4S which was no slouch in its day.
Display
Coupled with Windows Phone’s Live Tiles, the 8X’s 720 x 1280 pixel HD display is stunning. The pixel density (342 PPI) is higher than on the Nokia Lumia 920 and even the iPhone 5. Colours are rendered accurately and, even zoomed in, details are sharp and clear. We couldn’t detect any noticeable colour bias and there isn’t a hint of oversaturation.
Glare does not appear to be a problem and we were able to use the phone even in strong direct sunlight.
Until now, I’ve found Kindle books to be difficult to read on anything except an iPhone’s Retina display but this is as pleasurable on an 8X as a larger device.
Cameras
The 8X has a f/2.0 aperture and 28mm lens on the back coupled with a dedicated imaging chip which deliver the best results I’ve ever managed to squeeze out of a smartphone. The pictures are incredibly good for a point and shoot device whether close up or at a distance. Depth of field is good as is colour reproduction with sharp, accurately rendered colours that veer more towards under rather than oversaturation. Close-up, the macro performance is stunning with great detail reproduction even in low light.
Video capture is also up there with the best in class delivering 1080p at 30fps with a noticeable lack of wind noise and very speedy processing.
On the front, HTC has introduced a 2.1mp, f/2.0 wide angle camera allowing the social narcissists among us to start including up to three friends in those all-important profile and status shots.
Software
With Phone 8 development, Microsoft has gone down the Apple route opting to nip and tuck rather than radically overhaul the OS. It’s a brave strategy given the disappointing sales for Phone 7. But it’s the right decision – Windows Phone’s live tiles are far enough removed from the static icons of iOS and the confusing widget farm that Android has become to put clear blue water between Microsoft and its competitors.
Our testing predated the relaunch of the Windows Phone Store so we weren’t able to see the promised range of updated apps but it probably fair to say that this will continue to be very limited compared with the iOS App Store or Google Play. Those of us who desperately want to see a proper Twitter app or Dropbox on a Windows phone are likely to be still waiting months from now.
First introduced with its One series, HTC has included Beats audio technology with the 8X delivering an amazing depth and range of sound on even the cheapest in-ear earphones. But the inclusion of such an amazing sound system only serves to make the decision to limit on-board storage to 16GB appear even more bizarre.
What truly differentiates a Windows device from all the media-centric phones out there is its Office integration. With Phone 8 we’re still waiting for track changes on Word documents but tables and tabulation now render accurately and spreadsheets look and work like real Excel creations. For those of us who occasionally use a phone to grab a picture or a thought and share it with a desktop or tablet, the OneNote integration is fantastic and for the productivity minded this could be the deal sealer.
Microsoft is now bundling Nokia maps with all of its phones so you can download maps for most of the world and use them offline. This is a stroke of genius but one really does wonder what Nokia was thinking about when it decided to give away what was probably its last remaining USP.
I’d like to be able to say that web browsing on the 8X is pleasurable but Microsoft has failed to fix two of the biggest flaws with Phone 7: rendering and bookmarks. Pages still fail to render flawlessly leading to text and pictures overlapping on some sites giving the updated (and admittedly very quick) Internet Explorer an early 2002 Symbian feel. And as for bookmarks, the inability to manage and arrange your web bookmarks in folders or any other kind of coherent structure – rather than one long list – is baffling and, frankly, inexcusable.
Conclusion
The HTC Windows Phone 8X is a beautiful device with a delightful form factor. It is without doubt the best phone that HTC has made and has enough punch to be seriously considered alongside the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy SIII. On paper, it seems to beat the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC has moved heaven and earth to get it to market on time which must give it a head start over the other Windows signature phones. The cameras – both front and back – are class leading and the image results breathtaking for a phone.
But it isn’t without its flaws, most notably the limited on-board storage which will make gaining adoption among music lovers an uphill struggle. -
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