My new phone arrived today: a blue HTC 8X, running Windows Phone 8. As a huge Windows Phone fan put off by several persistent issues in Windows Phone 7.x, I’m basically giving this platform another shot, and in this day and age such a second chance doesn’t come cheap: the 8X is 539 EUR, after all. Here’s a few quick first impressions after less than a day of use.
The hardware of the 8X is nothing short of stunning in every way. I have become increasingly disillusioned by the sad state of hardware design in both the Android and iOS world, so I’m very happy both Nokia and HTC are treating their Windows Phone devices as all-bets-are-off design studies. Odd shapes, crazy colours – it’s all here. There’s no mistaking the 8X or the 920 for anything but a Windows Phone device.
Luckily, this seems to go beyond skin deep. The 8X feels incredibly sturdy, and the softness of the plastic – machined from a single block, including the front ear piece – makes it very comfortable to hold. The tapered edges play a huge role here too, masking it fit neatly in my hand. Most phones tend to feel slippery, but the 8X fits nicely.
There’s some weird issues with the hardware, too, though. Just like on one of its spiritual predecessors – the HTC HD7 – the power button is hard to press. The power, volume, and camera buttons also feel a bit flimsy, like they’re about to fall off. This is kind of strange for an otherwise solid piece of hardware, and on top of that, you’d think HTC had figured out by now how to make a decent button.
Of course, these are all just first impressions. Only time will tell how the hardware holds up over time.
The display is 4.3″, which I personally find the right size for a phone. There’s no logical reasoning behind this or anything, it’s just a preference. It’s a S-LCD2 with a 720×1280 resolution, which amounts to 342 ppi. I don’t know anything about what makes a good display, and unlike larger sites which can just line up all the latest phones and compare them, I can only make uninformed judgments about it. To my eyes, the display looks incredible; sharp, vivid, and bright. I can’t make out any individual pixels, and for a text-heavy interface like Metro that’s a godsend.
The display also seems to ‘float’ above the actual device, which is something that you see more and more these days. It’s a neat effect that doesn’t significantly alter the user experience, but does fit the Metro UI pretty well.
Speaking of Metro – Windows Phone 8 appears to be a massive step up from its predecessor. Everything is fast, and when I say everything, I truly mean everything. Loading applications, scrolling through the UI, networking – it’s all faster and more fluid. This is what Windows Phone should’ve been like from the get-go, and it’s fascinating to realise that going from Windows CE to Windows NT is the root cause for these substantial performance improvements.
The option to make smaller homescreen tiles is very welcome, as it makes everything more compact and easier to navigate. Sadly, some tiles’ notification counters still refuse to reset themselves, and so I’m still stuck with a Facebook tile that shows 8 notifications even though I’ve checked them all hours ago. Very infuriating.
The newer and higher resolutions Windows Phone 8 supports leads to an issue with applications that haven’t been updated to support them yet: black bars. Yes, they are noticable, and yes, they are annoying. Windows Phone clearly isn’t number one in most developers’ minds, so very few applications have been updated by this point. Be prepared to deal with them for a long while to come.
Speaking of applications, it’s still somewhat of a weak spot on Windows Phone. The selection is clearly a lot more limited than on competing platforms, and coming from Android it’s quite noticable not only how few applications there are, but also how iOS-like limited they are compared to Android’s more versatile nature. Not a surprise for us in the know, of course, but I find that this important fact gets overlooked in virtually every Android/iOS/Windows Phone review out there.
So far, there are two things I really miss in Windows Phone 8: a notification center, and wifi connection when sleeping. The former is being worked on, which is great news. The second feature, which is also coming in an update, requires a bit more explanation. Windows Phone shuts down wifi when the device locks, meaning it has to reconnect every time you unlike the phone, which usually takes just long enough to be annoying.
All in all, I’m quite satisfied so far. I’ve always liked Windows Phone, and it seems that with version 8 it has finally grown up. Perfect it is not – but really, what is – but it makes huge strides to catch up with the competition. This is all great news for those of us who aren’t looking forward to an Android-dominated market.
Thom, a superficial question 🙂 In most pictures of Windows Phones is see that all tiles have the same colour. They’re all red, or all yellow, for instance.
On Windows 8 (whichever version) the tiles have all different colours. Which is much more functional, I’d say. “OK, my email is that red square, and my internet is that blue one” seems easier than “Let’s see, which one of all these yellow squares was my email again? ”
So, is it possible to give each tile a different colour?
Is it also true that you cannot turn those animations (‘transitions’) off? I played with a WinPhone sometime ago and it irritated me very quickly (read: after 2 minutes) …..
Edited 2012-11-14 22:18 UTC
No and no
.
One more question Thom. Compared with Lumia better or not? At least with WP7 the HTC Titan was way more polished then Lumia so my impression.
Windows Phone shuts down wifi when the device locks, meaning it has to reconnect every time you unlike the phone, which usually takes just long enough to be annoying.
So everytime you “unlike” the phone it will disconnect from Wifi?
Edited 2012-11-19 01:34 UTC
Your WP7 device was HTC, was it not? As I mentioned before, My Lumia 710 connects to WiFi in a couple of seconds, and is never an inconvenience. I wonder if HTC is using a different part?
Also, how good is the sync software on your Mac? Is it better than iTunes on Windows? Because that shit is awful.
The HD7 took like 10-20 seconds, but the 8X is about a few seconds. Way better, but I’m used to no delay at all :/.
The Mac sync application is very basic, but I like it. It syncs shit. The end. Perfect.
Edited 2012-11-15 00:21 UTC
Beautiful. I wish the Zune app for Windows was simple like that, but it isn’t too bad.
The Windows Phone 8 application for Windows 7/8 (the non-Metro) is pretty much like that as well. I only hope that we don’t see Microsoft tempted to pollute an otherwise straight forward application into a bloatmoster like iTunes has become.
I hope they regularly update it when compared to the last time I used it which resulted in an update for Windows Phone 7 leaving me unable to sync with my Mac thus pretty much resulting in my giving up and going to purchase an iPhone (it took over 5 months for the fix to be delivered by the Mac Business Unit).
Regarding the future updates, from what I understand you’ll be able to bypass the using ‘carrier fucking the user over’ situation as it exists now in favour f getting updates directly from Microsoft instead. IMHO that is one of the biggest things that are pushing me from Windows Phone 7.5 (Lumia 900) to Windows Phone 8 thus avoiding a long standing issue that impacts Windows Phone and Android users. Hopefully with easier upgrades it’ll be quicker upgrades being released with more users adopting them in a shorter space thus spur on developers to take advantage of new features as they arrive. IIRC notifications are apparently coming to Windows Phone 8 but they weren’t ready for the RTM – maybe in 6months at the latest?
That is because HTC apparently does not to sell the LTE variant in Europe. At least for LTE phones in the US, this is going to be different.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569688/why-nexus-4-does-not-hav…
“Firmware pushed to devices over the air must be tested and certified”
By this point, MS should’ve had WinRT ported to phones, so you could run the same applications on phone, tablet, and desktop (and probably Xbox too). Why they haven’t done this is beyond me.
Speaking of WP8 though, do they have a decent Google Voice client available?
You do realise that you write WinRT applications on Windows Phone 8? that is what all the excitement is about, being able to write native applications on Windows Phone 8 rather than being forced to use the Silverlight environment along with its limitations.
Really? So what’s the difference between it and Windows RT on tablets/desktops? I’d figure by this point, you’d be able to write an app that ran on all 3, taking into account differences in resolution and screen real-estate, of course.
Windows RT runs on ARM tablets, WinRT is the Windows Run Time, and Windows Phone 8 is for phones. WinRT is present on Windows RT, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. The difference between Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT is Windows RT includes a desktop but you cannot run or install win32 applications where as with Windows Phone 8 there is included a stripped down version of Microsoft Office designed for the phone but doesn’t have win32 or desktop functionality. As for why Microsoft has included win32 and desktop functionality – because it appears that Microsoft want to provide a full Office 2013 experience to end users rather than a castrated stripped down phone version.
Edited 2012-11-15 02:27 UTC
And everything is fully native on Windows Phone 8, even .NET gets fully compiled to native code, not JITting is done.
Almost. There is some on-device compilation (Converting MDIL to native machine code, but its much faster than JITing MSIL using ngen or something).
It seems like this technology (Cloud compilation) is a rung above even what Windows 8 offers (Install time NGen as a Service) for .NET applications.
I wonder if cloud compilation will work for WP7 devices, it’d be nice to get some improved start up time on some apps.
MDIL is native code except for the memory references that are kept symbolic.
On the device you only have a linker, no compilation takes place.
At least this is the information available in Channel 9 and BUILD 2012.
Edited 2012-11-15 18:55 UTC
My eyes and my brain hurts.
Not quite. Windows Phone 8 runs applications written for WinPRT, which is similar to, but still not quite the same as, WinRT.
Thank you for the correction – do you have a link handy with some sort of matrix outlining the differences?
(1) turn by turn, voice directions in maps/navigation? that’s the big thing i missed from wp7.x
(2) voice control for text messaging? greatest feature in wp7 IMO is the ability to receive and respond to text messages hands and eyes free.
My biggest gripe is the lack of connectivity while asleep. It means it’s harder to get updates to emails/etc. without manually checking things. Or when you turn it on and go to weather or rowiapp or whatever, you have to wait for the app to “connect” on the network and get the data.
I have an HTC Trophy that I switch back to from time to time – I want to like the environment, but I keep returning to Android for daily use.
WP7.5 has turn-by-turn voice navigation.
Email updates occur when the phone is sleeping, also, as well as for other apps via the live tiles.
Edited 2012-11-15 04:16 UTC
No thank you.
You do realise that “Beats Audio” is just a set of equaliser presets, and that you can disable it, right? Or even configure your own custom EQ settings?
Phone equalizer.
Because the producers of music do such a poor job.
Dr. Dre would like to remix all your music.
Surprise, he thinks it needs more bass.
Loudness War?… (though it’s by design; and EQ can’t help much with its effects)
You can always normalize the audio. It will not reintroduce dynamic range, but it can ensure you don’t get blasted when changing from an uncompressed to a compressed sample.
Well yeah, Replaygain would be always a good idea when listening to a diverse playlist, Loudness War or not… (though it’s not foolproof, after all it can’t “perceive” loudness quite the way we do)
Replay-gain is certainly infinitely better than the status-qoe and/or normalisation but is there the option?
Replaygain is normalisation… and any good player (mobile or not) supports it.
Edited 2012-11-21 12:58 UTC
How does it know when you’ve unliked it! 😉
Nothing like a bit of desperation to inspire some innovation eh? Still, it’s good to see that HTC and Nokia realise that they’re going to have to get creative if they have a hope in hell against the Samsung juggernaut.
I’m probably going to buy a Win8 phone, but I think I’ll go for the Nokia rather than the HTC. While I don’t miss many things about my Nokias of old, build quality is the one thing I do miss.
That and the fact that the batteries used to last for weeks!
Reports I’m seeing from the new owners indicate that they are getting up to 14 hours use of the Lumia 920 before needing to recharge. So good by days/weeks, hello hours.
Of course you old phone performed fewer high tech stunts, so …
I think Nokia was creative as they has always tried and HTC copied.
What about the cell data connection (3G, LTE, ect)? Does it disconnect when it sleeps as well? That would be kind of a deal breaker for most people I know.
If the data connection is stil active, then why does it matter that it takes a while to reconnect to wifi? Is the switch over noticeable? Do you have an extensive LAN that you interact with on your phone often after waking it up? I don’t quite understand the issue you’re having.
The problem is that once a data transfer has been initiated (For example, let’s say you’re streaming Pandora), it can’t be reassigned to another transport medium.
If I start streaming on 3G, it will remain on 3G the entire time, despite me having WiFi. That’s the really nefarious part of the shortcoming, it can lead to unintended data usage.
On Windows Phone, background tasks may periodically execute, which may among other things request network resources (For a streaming agent, or a background transfer agent). This has the effect of gobbling up data usage.
So if Pandora is started on wifi and the phone goes to sleep, Pandora would stop, right?
Periodic background data usage while the phone is asleep should be fairly minimal, I can’t imagine that would be a problem data wise ( speaking as someone with a 300 meg data plan who typically only uses ~70 megs of it).
Sure it can be reassigned on the fly. Works on Android and iPhone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaming
“every time you unlike the phone” – Freudian slip?
Facebookian slip, more like.
I am waiting for the Nokia 820 to come onto Orange UK. It is a complete toss up for me between that and the 8x
Your review will certainly influence my decision!
Maybe I am understanding it wrong, but I thought the entire “live tile” interface of Windows Phone 8 IS a notification center in an of itself. With the tiles constantly updating, flipping, showing pictures, as you say, Facebook update counts, all that sort of thing, I thought there was no need at all for a notification center.
I’ve looked at WP 8, and while very pretty and totally different from Android and iOS, I just don’t care for it, and it’s a purely personal preference. Not being able to group your apps into any sort of organizational structure of folders like iOS is a deal-killer for me. I have a folder on the back page of my phone where I put all the apps I never use that come on the phone, out of sight/out of mind. That sort of thing. I really disliked having only a LOOOOONG list of apps to scroll through in order to find something.
Hm, since HTC was always about ~touchscreens – figuring out how to do proper buttons might be not their first priority ;p
Charybdis and Scylla have boarded the Kobayashi Maru.
I have a WP7.5 phone and my main gripe is the amount of data it seems to consume. The first month I started using it I got usage warnings from my provider which I never see under android.
I can only guess this is to do with the no-wifi-when-sleeping issue Thom describes.
That was one of the big issues when 7.0 was first released too.
Watched a few videos & even played with one at an AT&T Store.
I was drooling over HTC 8X & WP8. Microsoft really took the WP8 OS to a very good level and HTC did an fantastic job on the device design, feel & sturdiness.
While I seriously considered purchasing one, I actually opted for the HTC Titan 2 running WP7.5.
One prime reason was pricing. A new HTC WP8X device would’ve cost me $200 USD (w/agreement). Upgrading my current device to a new HTC Titan 2 only cost $20 because the new WP8 devices are out.
With my daughter in college, everything comes down to cost.
The other prime reason was the HTC Brand, itself. Over the last several year, all of my phone devices have been HTC with the sole exception of my Samsung Focus running WP7.X. I loved the OS but felt the Samsung device itself had far less quality in its construction & materials.
The prior HTC devices I’ve used are 8125, 8525, 8925, Tilt2, Fuze & HD2 (T-Mobile & unlocked for AT&T). I’ve found the form-factor & overall feel, reliability and sturdiness of the HTC devices I’ve used are nothing short of fantastic.
And I had the same impression of the HTC WP8X.
As I said, it all came down to the pricing why I got the Titan 2 instead.
Edited 2012-11-16 01:50 UTC
Take it back…quickly….AT&T is selling the Nokia 920 for 99 bucks…At that price it is simply the best deal in Windows Phones.
Nope. I tried both and found the HTC Titan 2 to be superior to the Nokia.
to should take mili seconds.
There are proper RFC for this behavior. Device just assume that previous config is correct one. And send requests for accepting that config, as opposed to requesting for any config.
Apple pushed for it, and they have it in OSX (iOS?).
This way you can turn off wifi completely saving some energy. (Unless WiFi wake up take too much time)
“I have become increasingly disillusioned by the sad state of hardware design in both the Android and iOS world”
Sad state of hardware design in both the Android and iOS world? What planet are you on?
You have to see what other designs Thom also likes to understand where he is coming from. He is a big fan of ultra minimalist designs and is kind of bored with the basic iPhone design too.
For example his post on the Sony Monolith TV.
That is fine. Though many of the WP8 phones just look like a squared off Android phone with lurid colours, to me. Nothing interesting either. I am played out with the whole functional minimalist school now.
But I agree with the general thrust of dull design, I just include Nokia in that group as well.
Edited 2012-11-19 16:54 UTC