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from apps becoming increasingly bloated (leaving some handsets nigh unusable), WP7 was able to make even its fairly outdated hardware at least feel snappy.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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shompa - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
The author is worried about vendor lock-in with the iPhone. Whats the difference with windows? You are locked into using windows on you PC/Phone.I am amazed how uneducated people are how MSFT locks its users in. Always by doing shady stuff. Gamers for example are forced to use windows because of DirectX. MSFT refused to follow open standards.
Office/Exchange is another huge lock-in.
The funniest thing is that windows fanatics never have used anything else then windows. Every single mac user I know have used/know how to use windows.
MSFT have a 50 billion turnover on crap. Its amazing.
(But I do give MSFT props for the Metro GUI. Their first own innovation)
thesavvymage - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
They are not locked into windows because of directX. Windows can use openGL and other rendering engines. Its just that directx is much more efficient and easier to code for than the open standards. Also, Office is not a lock in. It is simply the most widely used productivity software, and its also available for mac.UpSpin - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
The fact that Win 8 will be a requirement for Direct X 11.1 is artificical. MS forces you to upgrade to Win 8 if yout want to play the latest games. Luckily for us, game companies are too lazy to switch to DirectX 11.1 immediately. But maybe with the next XBox console, this will change, so people have to upgrade to Win 8 if the game requires DX11.1.Microsoft could support open Document formats, yet, they only improve their propietary stuff. So open source Office solution often aren't fully compatible to MS Office documents and it's a hassle to switch between them.
MS could also support OpenGL, no, they only develop DX, because that way they make sure that gamers use Windows, and regularily update to the latest version, if they want to play a game.
This will, luckily, change, because of Valves and other start up initatives (Ouya) to support open console like devices running on anything.
A5 - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
1) Ouya is going to fail. Just so you know.2) Steambox won't change anything because the console ports are all going to be DirectX. The reason DirectX took such a huge lead is that OpenGL was slow to adapt to changing standards and whatnot.
DanNeely - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Supporting old hardware means there're multi-year lags in when new DX standards become required. It's only really been in the last year or so that DX10 only titles have started appearing in any significant number, and DX10 launched nearly 6 years ago with Vista.By the time DX11.1 becomes a required minimum as opposed to something that gives extra eyecandy at max settings windows 9 will probably be in the middle of it's retail lifetime and DX11.0 only systems will be obsolescent at best.
In the medium term keeping everything working with DX10 only systems for the cross platform ports is, if anything, likely to hold back the 720. I doubt that will be an issue though since DX11/11.1 have only been incremental changes on top of the existing DX10 foundation, and not major redesigns like the DX9-10 upgrade.
Alexvrb - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
If Microsoft's document format is so proprietary, why does Libre Office work for me? On Windows, no less? MS isn't half as bad as Apple. You can even put a browser on WP8 that uses its OWN proprietary rendering engine - try doing that on iOS! You can't!Most developers actually support multiple renderpaths. As a result, the vast, VAST majority of games will run fine on Vista/Win7 even if they DO support an 11.1 render path. Actually, most of the important 11.1 features are getting backported to Win7 anyway.
Valve's only motivation for Steambox is money. They want a box where they are the primary/sole distributor, and take a cut of all profits. They don't want to share that cut with MS or anyone else. If all they really wanted to do was foster gaming on Linux or PCs in general, they wouldn't be building a console-type system. They would drop their fees to almost nothing for Linux versions to encourage developers to make a Linux port. Maybe even reduce their cut for the Windows version of any game with a Linux port, to further sweeten the deal.
ananduser - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
The DX 11.1 requirement is also tied to kernel modifications that are present in Win8. It is not artificial.OpenGL was always supported in Windows, but since OGL was built with CAD in mind, they(MS) created a superior product with DirectX that caters exclusively to games. It's so good that Carmack himself praised it.
krutou - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
"The fact that Win 8 will be a requirement for Direct X 11.1 is artificical. MS forces you to upgrade to Win 8 if yout want to play the latest games."How else is MSFT going to pay for DirectX development? DirectX is a large driving factor for the improvement of graphics quality and performance in PC games.
boozed - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Tell us the story about how we're all so uneducated again, oh enlightened one!karasaj - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
I used an iMac for four years in band/for various music editing stuff. I love mac for music, photo, and video related stuff, but prefer Windows for most things. I see why some people like Mac more, but I personally don't.