From Mango to Apollo: The HTC Windows Phone 8X on the Daily
by Dustin Sklavos on January 28, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- windows phone 8
- Windows Phone 8X
- HTC 8X
Migrating from Windows Phone 7.5
If you're one of the precious few people who invested in Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 like I did, Windows Phone 8 is going to feel pretty lackluster initially, if not even capable of engendering a mild feeling of resentment. Windows Phone 7 was a rough draft and a product with no real future the moment it left Microsoft, and they knew it. If you're a Blizzard fan you're probably used to being treated like a free beta tester, but for the rest of us, the relatively barren app ecosystem, entry level operating system, outdated hardware, and lack of support even from Microsoft undoubtedly felt disappointing.
With all that griping said, though, you couldn't really deny that Microsoft had produced a very polished experience. More than anything, Windows Phone 7 was stable. While Android and iOS can suffer from apps becoming increasingly bloated (leaving some handsets nigh unusable), WP7 was able to make even its fairly outdated hardware at least feel snappy. Any problems I had with the Dell Venue Pro were because of the Dell Venue Pro, and not its operating system.
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Switch to Windows Phone 8 and things change a little bit. The expanded hardware support means we get phones like the HTC Windows Phone 8X that are remarkably fast, fully-featured pieces of kit; multiple reviews of the 8X, ironically enough, wanted an Android version of it. With the lackluster hardware support of WP7 out of the equation, WP8 feels snappier still and remains an incredibly responsive operating system. If you liked how smooth WP7 felt, you'll love WP8.
The problem is that it's not quite as stable as WP7 was, and that's due chiefly to app compatibility. While I haven't had any major problems with the hardware or even most of the software I've run on it, Zynga's bloated code nightmare Words with Friends has caused my handset to either hang or reset multiple times. I would expect users running older WP7 and 7.5-based applications to have a mostly trouble free experience (and certainly worlds better than Android), but there are still hiccups here and there.
As for actually making the jump from 7.5 to 8, since the UI is almost exactly the same, it's incredibly easy to switch. Everything is where you left it, it's just now there's more of it. The quarter-sized live tiles are a welcome addition, the faster hardware is a major improvement, and probably best of all, Microsoft is starting to really throw their weight behind the OS and its app ecosystem. Third party apps exist to handle a lot of what you're looking for, and they do it reasonably well, but I'm really looking forward to an official Pandora app. Nokia making Drive available for all WP8 handsets is also a major boon. While Apple Maps turn-by-turn navigation was likely to lead you to the family from The Hills Have Eyes, at least you didn't have to look at or tap the display to get there.
Managing your Windows Phone from your computer has also gotten dramatically easier. You no longer use the Zune software (putting one of the last nails in Zune's coffin) for WP8; instead, the Windows Phone (helped by its new NT-based kernel), after a Windows Update, can basically be navigated to as conventional storage. That means you can simply drag and drop music, video, photos, documents, and even ringtones directly into their respective folders straight from Windows Explorer. It's a huge usability improvement. If you'd still rather use a dedicated application to handle it, you can download one from Microsoft, but this is a tremendous improvement over having to fuss with Zune.
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rex251 - Thursday, January 31, 2013 - link
I had HTC 8X for few days, couldn´t stand it any more, had some freezing screen issues, I don´t blame MS for that , but for things below I do blame MS.I just can´t stand simple little things get ignored from MS for three years (or more) in development of wp os.
1) if you bundle MS Office, I would expect best possible support for native MS Office documents, not been able to open password protected word document created in PC MS Office is just not acceptable
2) if there are three little buttons on the bottom of the phone, and one little button has symbol for search, why do you think Microsoft that I would like to use this button only for Bing search and not use it for searching my current application (like for instance contacts app, or mail app), why only Bing?????
3) when I am in phone app, and I try search for a contact, why do you Microsoft think I am only interested in searching my recent contact list, and not all my contacts, is this so damn hard thing to understand
4) when I see picture on tile (e.g. pictures app), I would really like to open that picture in that particular moment Microsoft, I really would, maybe live tile reminded me on my poor childhood and i didn´t saw this picture for years, why I am not able to open this particular picture Microsoft, why????
This is enough for know MS, see you in 2 years maybe if you´ll still be around.
JoanSpark - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
just had the joy of setting up a mobile (Nokia Lumia 620) with Win phone 8.Coming from a Nokia N9 with Meego I got some findings..
pro of Win 8 vs. Meego:
- different sizes for live tiles/app buttons
cons of Win 8 vs. Meego:
- no clock when screen is shut off (very shitty, don't want to switch the phone on just to read the time)
- double tapping the screen doesn't bring the lock screen up (only pressing the button does, how last century)
- can't change the color of single live tiles nor their symbols (contact live tile is changing checker texture if sized bigger than 1x1 all the time which is disturbing)
- phone status (reception, battery) vanish after 30 secs (I live in a fringe area, this is important)
- closing apps and changing between them is not as convenient/intuitive as with Meego
I also miss a setting that would allow to have 3 tiles spaced horizontally on the screen, instead of either 4 or 2. The small tiles are too close together for error free usage and the bigger tiles take up too much space.
Wolfpup - Thursday, February 21, 2013 - link
I used Windows Phone 7 briefly on a Nokia, and largely thought it was pretty great in a lot of ways. I'd love to give this a shot!Some random thoughts though:
-These things need a way to manage installed programs from a PC. I think Windows Phone and Android you're just just redownloading (potentially huge) programs if you delete them or need to reinstall on a different device? I like Apple's approach...you CAN do that, but you can (and should) manage it from a PC.
-The search button...it's one of the three prominent buttons on the device, and as near as I can tell, it's next to useless. I do not understand it. When I click "search" I expect it's going to search THE DEVICE either globally or within the current program-preferably with an easy way to toggle one or the other. That's crazy obvious, only WP7.5 and 8 inexplicably just use that button to trigger Bing? I wouldn't mind optional web searches from a device search, but I'd want that listed AFTER the local content, with a way to disable it. It feels ridiculous to dedicate a prominent button to a web search...I want to do that from a web browser.
-I'd like some easy way to control screen rotation, like in iOS...
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naynesh_shah - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link
Does HTC 8 X Support Java ? I find without java support , mobile banking will , Train tkt etc will not work. Is there a way ?naynesh_shah - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link
is there a way to run java applications like mobile banking , train tkt resevation etc on HTC 8 X?I understand that it does not support java. in that case it will be Big Mistake to BUY HTC 8 X.
pl help at naynesh_shah@hotmail.com
znender - Thursday, March 21, 2013 - link
I had the HTC 8X for a few weeks but ultimately sold it for an Android device instead.The thing that I couldn't stand was the multitasking interaction for WP8.
If you get out of an app and onto the Home screen then tap on the app, it'll reopen the app and reload any data with the annoying loading screen. If you use the back button to access multitasking screen and select the app, the app will load but freeze for a bit before the app is useable. Not seamless at all. And it'll start showing loading data from the web.