News - HTC 8X and 8S Windows Phone 8 smartphones unveiled

[HEXUS]

More colourful designs destined for the WP8 stable. No prices yet...

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[Fanglord]

I dunno what the iPhone5 hype is about, I know its personal pref but these look 10x better.

[Biscuit]

Look nice but it's pretty similar to the lumia in its colourful style. Why does the s have an sd slot and the x doesn't?

[jnutt]

Look nice but it's pretty similar to the lumia in its colourful style. Why does the s have an sd slot and the x doesn't?

Exactly what I was thinking

[bert7]

Had a look on HTC site, the X has micro sd slot and wav format, they were dropped on the last Windows phones. now i will go back to this Windows 8 x phone instead of my HTC Sensation XE Android thing. looks like a Microsoft Surface PRO, with Windows 8 will be PERRRRFICT setup. As a self-employed person this will give me access to Microsoft software and there band of followers software, this will help me run my business. see ya later Android.

[Noxvayl]

I wonder if there will be a WP8 device that doesn't have this simple and colourful look; I quite like it but there seems to be little choice with regards to Windows Phone devices.

[Brewster0101]

So the 8X is HTC's best - considering how yesterday they said they needed to go better to keep up this is a perfect example of how they have fallen short.

Only 16GB memory (no upgradable) compared to Nokia 920 32GB
1800mah battery - compared to Nokia 920's 2000 mah

[Spud1]

First thing that strikes me from those pictures? They both look exactly like a Lumia but with the HTC logo...it's really quite a striking resemblance.

Anyway doesn't really matter it's Windows Phone 8, which is a very mediocre update to WP 7.5..sadly still way behind the times, crippled by Bing in the UK and stuck with the Metro styling (the UI is nice, the metro Styling is not). Of course the biggest problem right now is that there are still not enough Apps available - although hopefully this will change if Windows 8T does indeed take off.

Becoming a bit disillusioned now with Smartphones - there is just nothing exciting anymore. Android is not very exciting, iOS just refuses to change and WP7/8 just has too many problems outside of the US. Have big hopes for BBOS10 but even then we have the app shortage problem until more Android devs take the 30 minutes to repackage their apps.

[cameronlite]

Anyway doesn't really matter it's Windows Phone 8, which is a very mediocre update to WP 7.5..sadly still way behind the times, crippled by Bing in the UK and stuck with the Metro styling (the UI is nice, the metro Styling is not). Of course the biggest problem right now is that there are still not enough Apps available - although hopefully this will change if Windows 8T does indeed take off.

Could you please explain how:
a) it's a mediocre update when it adds so many new features?
b) there aren't enough apps? Granted there are less than competing OSes but 100,000 is nothing to complain about.

So the 8X is HTC's best - considering how yesterday they said they needed to go better to keep up this is a perfect example of how they have fallen short.

Only 16GB memory (no upgradable) compared to Nokia 920 32GB
1800mah battery - compared to Nokia 920's 2000 mah

The thing is with the HTC Win8 phones is that they're significantly lighter and will (most probably) be cheaper. You can see where these cuts help out.

[crossy]

I dunno what the iPhone5 hype is about, I know its personal pref but these look 10x better.

Look nice but it's pretty similar to the lumia in its colourful style. Why does the s have an sd slot and the x doesn't?

Agreed to both of these. Being rude the spec for the 8S almost looks like they'd initially got something closer to the 8X and then decided that they needed to downgrade it.

Colours look a little Lumia-ish, and that different colour end cap scream "Sony Xperia" at me - got to say though that if HTC can get the quality up (especially decent battery life) then these are probably going to be very popular. And rightly so imho.

Is it just me or do the WP8 models from Nokia and now HTC make the Samsung efforts look pretty dowdy, uninspired and "ugly duckling"?

[Spud1]

Could you please explain how:
a) it's a mediocre update when it adds so many new features?
b) there aren't enough apps? Granted there are less than competing OSes but 100,000 is nothing to complain about.

Mind if I turn that around and ask you what these many new features are? I can't find even one new feature that is worth the upgrade, apart from the removal of hardware restrictions if you call that a feature. This is a genuine question not a troll post - I have seen the new feature list and there are many points saying "support for MicroSD" or "Support for higher resolution displays" but you are getting into Apple territory there if you can call those things new features

I do have a "wish list" for WP that would tempt me to upgrade to a new one rather than going for an alternative (I have 7.5 atm)

Truely live tiles
A notification system
Fixing and/or removal of Bing
Allow change of default search provider in IE
Removal of Windows/Back key requirements (seriously, just try and play a swipe game on a high end WP device...you WILL catch that back button)
4G/LTE support
Music app that lets you "scroll through" a track (i.e. jump to a point - not just FastForwarding)
Full podcast support in the UK (currently you have to add thenm through Zune)

Additionally - if I am wrong on any of the above please point it out, I would love to know

On the app point - it's not quanitity that counts but quality. Still waiting on many many of the big/fun draws that are on both iOS and Android, but just don't exist on WP. So many times I remember an App I used to have on my iPhone and thought "oh I'll just get it on my new phone" to find it's not available. Words with friends, songpop, draw something, an up to date fruit ninja...yes these are silly little games, but it's the sort of app that appeals when you are boring waiting at the bus stop and want something to do.

[The Hand]

I like the looks of the 8S, but it doesn't have NFC.. I feel like when I buy one of the recent WP8 phones, I'll be compromising on at least one significant feature.

Edit:

Techradar now has the pricing on both the 8X and the 8S:

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-...vealed-1098674

8X is nearly £400 and 8S is nearly £225.

[cameronlite]

Mind if I turn that around and ask you what these many new features are? I can't find even one new feature that is worth the upgrade, apart from the removal of hardware restrictions if you call that a feature. This is a genuine question not a troll post - I have seen the new feature list and there are many points saying "support for MicroSD" or "Support for higher resolution displays" but you are getting into Apple territory there if you can call those things new features

As we're talking about upgrading from WP7 yes they do count as new features. HD screens, NFC, wireless charging, Windows security, network stacks, multimedia support, bitlocker, secure boot, app to app communication.

[dangel]

As we're talking about upgrading from WP7 yes they do count as new features. HD screens, NFC, wireless charging, Windows security, network stacks, multimedia support, bitlocker, secure boot, app to app communication.

No to mention it's effectively a whole new OS with a NT core from Windows proper. WP7 was underpinned by WinCE!

[Spud1]

^^ OK but how many of those new "features" are going to matter to end users? Plus how many are truely a factor of the OS itself Vs the hardware.

They still don't address some of the biggest critiscisms of Windows Phone (leaving aside the styling), which are the tiny annoying day to day things, most of which I mentioned above.

Wireless charging/bigger screen/faster CPU etc..all these things are pure hardware changes to end users.

It really is an incremental update that doesn't add anything major or new from an end user perspective. Who cares (in the user community) about the impressive changes under the hood (which technically make life MUCH easier from a development POV) when they don't add anything new for a user, apart from possibly NFC support (which is rather useless).

I want to love it, I want it to be the best mobile OS platform out there and it sure has the potential..but it isn't there yet and everything I have seen/read about WP8 backs that up.

Ah well I have another 9 months left with my WP 7.5 device and will get most of the WP8 features as the WP 7.8 update early next year anyway..by that time we should know about 8.5 which might finally be a version ready for the public

[TheAnimus]

Bit confused Spud, because I thought you'd been playing with the beta.

I do have a "wish list" for WP that would tempt me to upgrade to a new one rather than going for an alternative (I have 7.5 atm)

Truely live tiles
A notification system
Fixing and/or removal of Bing
Allow change of default search provider in IE
Removal of Windows/Back key requirements (seriously, just try and play a swipe game on a high end WP device...you WILL catch that back button)
4G/LTE support
Music app that lets you "scroll through" a track (i.e. jump to a point - not just FastForwarding)
Full podcast support in the UK (currently you have to add thenm through Zune)

Additionally - if I am wrong on any of the above please point it out, I would love to know

So...
Live tiles & Notificaiton, currently live tiles in 7.5 are push notification driven, by a cloud service, its battery effecient but yes, not live. They've added more live support in 8, and updated the notificaitons. However notifications still aren't as good as andriod.
Bing app, yeah, thats erm, screwed for choice.
4G/LTE is there, the 920 is exclusive to EE for a while because of this.
Music skipping, I'd love a goto: xx.xx for pod casts etc.
Podcast support has changed in 8.