Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8X by HTC Preview
by Brian Klug on October 29, 2012 2:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- windows phone 8
- Windows Phone 8X
- HTC 8X
- WP8
I titled this section final thoughts but left off the word conclusions because I feel that I need to spend longer with WP8 before really drawing any major conclusions - think of this as something of a big preview. At the same time, my first impressions and thoughts are indeed beginning to solidify. For the platform WP8 is absolutely an evolutionary step, rather than another dramatic re-imagining of Microsoft's vision for smartphones. Reimagining the start screen and including another size of live tiles is a nice touch, but the majority of the WP8 interface is the same as it was before. In fact, the most dramatic of changes with WP8 aren't even really visible to end users immediately with the move to the NT based kernel - the fruits of that move will only come later on in the future of the platform with increased hardware portability, better performance, and easier execution for OEMs and silicon vendors.
Anand made this great observation a while back that each platform was ultimately a reflection of the desktop position of the company behind it. For Google's smartphone platform, that means a full standalone computing environment complete with filesystem, since the search giant lacks its own desktop OS. Android essentially has to compensate for that lack of a real desktop platform by being everything. For iOS, what started as a clear evolution of the iPod has slowly evolved into a standalone platform, but still separate and distinct from OS X. iOS on an iPad for example can exist without a desktop, but doesn't try to supplant one. For Windows Phone, I can't shake the feeling that Microsoft still views the smartphone story as an accessory to everything else - Xbox, Windows 8, and Windows RT. They're three very distinct strategies with subtle differences, but absolutely drive the software decisions that get made each update.
At the same time WP8 feels like a dramatic update over WP7.5, and I find myself wondering what position Windows Phone would be in had it launched with the NT kernel and with this overall platform. The reality is that WP7 was a time to market play and that at the same time Microsoft was busy porting all of the software to deliver a Windows RT, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 trifecta. Now that it's upon us hopefully some of the real advantages of this triple play will finally be made clear, and to really be the judge of that I need to actually sit down with all three and experience it. From a feature perspective I just wish that WP8 had tweaked a few more things - fast app switching still is a view with JPEG-compressed screenshots and visible artifacts, there's no VPN support, and messaging needs support for more IM protocols to be truly useful. Application support has gotten better over time on Windows Phone, but now the big drive will be getting existing apps updated to support the new features like live tiles and faster app switching. The big question is how many Windows RT or Windows 8 apps developers will end up porting over to WP8, a process which should be relatively painless given the shared frameworks.
For what it is, WP8 is a great update. It brings us the framework necessary to finally get modern hardware for Windows Phone, and will launch with what is without a doubt the best hardware from OEM partners in the 8X and Lumia 920. My time with HTC's 8X has been extremely positive - I think they nailed the industrial design, in hand feel, and the right balance of features for a Windows Phone 8. The OS feels smoother than it ever has everywhere I look and in every app I've tried out.
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R101 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Is there any info on bluetooth support - does Windows 8 provide phonebook entries and call history over bluetooth or not?R101 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Windows PHONE 8, just to be more precise..Jorange - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Just to show I have no inbuilt bias, I currently own a Lumia 800, Nexus 7 / iPod Touch and Windows 8 & Linux PCs, in the past I've used OS X.A dual-core S4 (good) / Adreno 225 (Average) / RAM - 1 GB (ok) 512 MB (not good enough) These specs are just about passable for a head-end phone, but the quad-core S4 Pro with Adreno 320 is a big improvement, the A6 is excellent. ARM A15 SoC like the Exynos 5250 are already on the market, although not in a phone, Tegra 4 and Exynos 5450 will launch in Q1 to Q2 2013 and will destroy a regular S4.
People may argue that WP8 is smooth, big woof so was WP7, and so is iOS and thanks to Jelly Bean so is Android. When it comes to gaming, web browsing, apart from Sunspider (cough cheat) WP8 will age quickly. There are already reports that page loading and general app opening times are more sluggish than iPhone 5 / high-end Android, which Windows Phone like to hide with transition animations, which can irk after a while.
Will all my above comments be rendered mute by a yearly Hardware update cadence? That is the big question, if not WP8 will fail to offer the high-end attractions its rival platforms will offer, such as cutting edge games / 1080p video at 60 FPS etc because of lower spec hardware.
von Krupp - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
One of the biggest differences between WP7 and WP8, though, is that Microsoft built an upgrade path into the latter. WP7 was basically locked onto the launch hardware. From what I understand, WP8 can be scaled to up to 64 cores, and supports resolutions greater than 720p. I'm sure GPU and RAM improvements will be included.Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
"People may argue that WP8 is smooth, big woof so was WP7, and so is iOS and thanks to Jelly Bean so is Android. When it comes to gaming, web browsing, apart from Sunspider (cough cheat) WP8 will age quickly."Do you only know how to read numbers, not words? Did you see the part of the review where he mentions how hardware support will be much broader for WP8? It has support for up to 64 cores. It won't age any more quickly than Android or iOS.
Freak01 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Once again, and I'm sure there are others who would would really like to see a proper review of the new Nokia. Anand...?ex2bot - Thursday, November 1, 2012 - link
Incidentally, isn't calling Apple primarily a hardware company a wild oversimplification? Modern Apple software: OS X, iOS, iPhoto*, iMovie*, iDVD, GarageBand*, iTunes, Pages*, Numbers*, Keynote*, Safari,* QuickTime, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Logic, DVD Studio Pro, OS X Server, Remote, Apple Store, iBooks. Not to mention the dozens of applications associated with their operating systems.* Versions for both mobile and desktop
JNo - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
"For the platform WP8 is absolutely an evolutionary step, rather than another dramatic re-imagining of Microsoft's vision for smartphones.""At the same time WP8 feels like a dramatic update over WP7.5"
These sentences in the conclusion seem somewhat contradictory... there might be good reasons why they are not but, if any, they are not clear to me.
tipoo - Saturday, November 3, 2012 - link
Since it's becoming very apparent that some browsers optimize around certain browser tests, wouldn't it be better to just have page load speed comparison benchmarks with a few well known websites, or an aggregate of a few?righteousdesigner - Saturday, November 3, 2012 - link
Can anyone tell me if TMO version of HTC 8x will be LTE futureproof like GSN2?