I’ve had the HTC 8X with the Windows Phone OS for about two months and I have some thoughts on the phone that I share in this review.
The back of the phone is a soft touch rubber surface and it is easy to get a good grip on it and it doesn’t easily slip out of your pocket by accident. The dedicated camera button makes it very fast to take pictures whiteout having to unlock the phone first.
There is almost no indication when you move your finger over the top of the phone that there is a button. This makes the power button somewhat hard to find and it usually takes me a couple of tries.
The Gorilla Glass is supposed to be very hard, however, after only a couple of days, my screen had some serious scratches.
Update
I recently got some updates from Microsoft, HTC, and Beats Audio that addressed a series of bugs in Windows Phone 8. Before these updates, the phone was a nightmare. The sound would stop working and the phone would perform random reboots. However, after these updates, the phone is great and I only have a few issues. These are not bugs but some annoying design decisions.
Volume
The volume is not separated. What this means is that if I turn down the music volume I also turn down the ringtone volume. This is very inconvenient and I have missed many calls on that account. I wish it was possible to disable the search button. I keep hitting it by accident and I have no desire to use Bing.
Apps
The Microsoft services for mail, calendar, and contacts like outlook.com or Microsoft Exchange are integrated extremely well. Changes made in Microsoft Outlook are almost immediately shown on the phone and vice versa. Task sync with outlook.com is unfortunately not supported in Outlook 2010 but should work in Outlook 2013.
If you use another service like Gmail or Google Apps the experience is not that good. Windows Phone 8 integrates very poorly with Google services and you a properly better of getting an Android phone if you want the same level of integration between phone and service.
It’s the tight integration of services that makes the Windows Phone 8 experiences so good. Mail, calendar, contacts, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn integration is all built right in the operating system.
Specification For HTC 8X
- Display: 4.3-inch super LCD 2, Gorilla Glass, 1280×720
- CPU: Qualcomm S4 1.5 GHz dual-core
- Memory: 16 GB, RAM 1 GB
- Network: GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE/ CDMA/ HSPA/ WCDMA/ LTE
- Wireless: Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, 2.4 & 5 GHz
- Ports: 3.5mm audio, micro USB
- Cameras: Front- 2.1 MP, f/2.0 aperture, ultra-wide angle, 1080p recording; Rear- 8 MP, f/2.0 aperture, 28mm lens
- Audio: Beats Audio
- Battery: 1,800 Ah
- Dimensions: 132.35 x 66.2 x 10.12mm, 130 grams; 5.21 x 2.6 x 0.39 inches, 4.58 ounces
- NFC capable, depending on the operator