HTC Windows Phone 8X

Properly powered and engineered to perfection, the Nokia, Samsung and HTC WP8 smartphones are all making a bid to break iOS and Android's grip on the market. They are all fine species of smartphone. With the same screen resolution and chipsets powering them, with the Redmond-mandated hardware specs, they all have Microsoft written all over.

 

But then, it's only the Taiwanese that actually have it in writing. There's only one Windows Phone 8X - and it's the HTC Windows Phone flagship. Not a bad way to start now, is it? It must be quite a lift for the HTC Windows Phone 8X to feel special among clearly superior rivals. While Nokia and Samsung gave their WP top dogs those massive screens, HTC went for a relatively modest 4.3" LCD.

HTC Windows Phone 8X official photos

On one hand, it sounds like a smart move. The HTC Windows Phone 8X will be the only option for those looking for a more compact premium device that carries Microsoft's latest mobile platform. On the other, this could see the 8X relegated to a lower tier and made to fight it out with the likes of the Lumia 820. Now, that would call for some aggressive pricing and lower profit margins perhaps, which isn't exactly ideal for a company that hasn't had the best of streaks lately.

Key features

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Quad-band 3G with 42 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA support
4.3" 16M-color S-LCD2 capacitive touchscreen of 720 x 1280 pixel resolution
Scratch resistant Gorilla Glass 2 display
8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, 1080p@30fps video recording
2.1MP front-facing camera
Windows Phone 8 OS
1.5GHz dual-core Krait CPU, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset, 1GB of RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band
GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS support
Digital compass
16GB of inbuilt storage
Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
microUSB port
Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP and EDR, file transfers
Impressively deep and coherent SNS integration throughout the interface
Xbox Live integration and Xbox management
Data Sense
Class-leading JavaScript performance
NFC support
HTC exclusive apps
Beats audio enhancements