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HTC unveils its first Windows Phone 8 devices: the 8X and 8S

At a New York City event on Wednesday, HTC unveiled their first Windows Phone 8 devices. These two devices are mostly geared towards fashion-minded people with their bold colors and stylings. The HTC 8X is the flagship Windows Phone 8 device for HTC, and the HTC 8S is the more mid-range device. Do these devices stack up to the other Windows Phone 8 devices? Are these devices compelling enough to make people switch from Android or iOS? Find out the answers to these questions and more in our scoop on HTC's first Windows Phone 8 offerings.

HTC 8X

The HTC 8X is HTC's brand-new Windows Phone 8 flagship. It has many of the specs that you would find on an Android flagship with its 1.5GHZ dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 4.3 inch 1,280 x 720 Super LCD 2 display, NFC, 16GB of built-in memory, and a 1,800MAH battery. Windows Phone handsets are no longer inferior to the latest Android flagships, because these specs rival the HTC One X's specs and the specs of many other high-end phones. We have not seen the 8X in person, but we think that the Super LCD 2 display will offer fantastic results, and it will be one of the best displays on the market alongside the HTC One X's display and the Samsung Galaxy S III's display. The S4 processor paired with the 1GB of RAM will probably offer great performance on Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone has already performed great with single-core processors and it is only getting faster. The 1,800MAH battery looks like it will offer nice battery life, but we will have to see how efficient Windows Phone 8 is. The HTC 8X also comes in black, yellow, blue, and red to satisfy your color needs. Like the One X, the 8X is fashioned out of a single piece of polycarbonate and looks like it will feel great in the hand. We liked the One X's polycarbonate design and the 8X will probably offer the same great feel. The 8X is a little on the chubby side at 10mm thick, but the design tapers and will probably feel good in the hand. As the name and specs portray, the HTC 8X is basically the Windows Phone 8 doppelganger of the HTC One X with its polycarbonate body and high-end specs. On certain carriers, the HTC 8X will offer LTE in addition to HSPA+ connectivity, but it will probably offer only HSPA+ on the unlocked version. The HTC 8X is our favorite Windows Phone 8 handset so far, and it is probably the best Windows Phone 8 handset. The Nokia Lumia 920 is not that much of an upgrade over the 900 and is really boring, and the Lumia 800 is somewhat worse than the original 800. The only Windows Phone 8 handset that could stand against HTC's 8X would be the Samsung Ativ S, but we will have to wait till it is announced to put our opinion on it. The HTC 8X is an overall fantastic handset, but the Windows Phone 8 software will have to be really good to beat the HTC One X and the other Android flagships.

HTC 8S

The HTC 8S is the other Windows Phone handset that HTC unveiled at their event on Wednesday. It is the "little brother" to the 8X and its specs show this. The HTC 8S has a 4 inch 800 x 480 WVGA LCD display, a dual-core 1GHZ Snapdragon S4 processor accompanied by 512MB of RAM, a middling 5 megapixel camera with LED flash capable of 720p video, 4GB of built-in storage, a microSD slot for raising the 4GB of memory to up to 32GB, and a 1,700MAH battery. These specs make the HTC 8S more of a mid-range handset, but this handset, nonetheless, looks very nice. While most mid-range and low-end handsets are made of cheap, glossy plastic (and some high-end Samsung phones), the 8S is made of nice, matte polycarbonate. We would really like to see matte polycarbonate on more phones, because it is much nicer and does not give the handset a cheap feel. The screen will probably not wow anyone, but WVGA screens look very nice on 4 inch displays. The camera will also not shock anyone, but since HTC has their new ImageSense technology and their recent crop of great smartphone cameras, this will probably deliver better results than your average 5 megapixel sensor. The processor looks like it will be underwhelming on paper, but we have seen fantastic results on single-core Windows Phone handsets before so this will probably deliver good results also. The HTC 8S is for the fashion-minded like the 8X with many two-tone color options. The 8S comes in black with a white strip at the bottom, grey with a yellow-green strip, red with an orange strip, and dark blue with a  lighter blue strip. This color-strip design is somewhat similar to the Sony Xperia U's design, but it is not copying it entirely and looks much better. Unlike the 8X, the 8S does not have an LTE radio, but it still has an HSPA radio. The HTC 8S looks like a very promising handset, but HTC will have to offer it pretty cheap to make it even a consideration to buy over an Android handset.

Wrap-up

HTC's first shot at Windows Phone 8 is absolutely fantastic. The 8X is a great high-end device that rivals most Android flagships (we are looking at you Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X), and the 8S caters to the mid-range market while still offering quality features. We say that these devices beat Nokia's Lumia 920 and 820, but that is only our opinion. The 8X and 8S look very promising and are overall amazing, but Windows Phone 8 has to deliver to make these handsets truly stand up to the Android competition. If a handset had the absolute best hardware, but dead software (Nokia N9), it could not be recommended to anyone. We will just have to wait and see what Microsoft shows off with Windows Phone 8 in October. Want more information on HTC's first round of Windows Phone 8 handsets? Check out the source links below for more information and pictures on these brand-new devices.


Sources: Engadget HTC 8X announcement, Engadget HTC 8S announcement, Engadget hands-on with the HTC 8X, Engadget hands-on with the HTC 8S, HTC 8X and HTC 8S   

 Pictures from the source links above

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