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
Essentials: Browser
As Brian mentioned before, the browser experience on Windows Phone 8 is improved largely under the hood. Windows Phone 8 enjoys the Trident 6.0 engine shared by Internet Explorer 10 on the desktop and even identifies itself as IE10. It's smooth and gets the job done, but actually feels too stripped down. I've come to accept that if I want Flash on a mobile platform I need to be running Android, but tab management is sorely lacking.
That isn't to say that you can't actually have multiple tabs open, but the only way you can get a shortcut to the tabs you have open without having to bring up the drop menu on the bottom of the display is to swap out the stop/reload button for it. So while the browser in Windows Phone 8 is very functional and snappy, it's extremely easy to outright forget which tabs you've left open in the first place. This was a problem in 7, and it persists here.
Again, though, performance is definitely up from 7, and compatibility as well. I've found IE10 in WP8 to be a noticeable improvement in practice.
Essentials: E-Mail
I've heard complaints of the e-mail app in Windows Phone 7 (and 7.5 and now 8) as being too stripped down, but I've never actually felt it was particularly oversimplified. I have three different e-mail boxes that I need regular access to: my personal e-mail, my Gmail, and my AnandTech e-mail. You can choose to have each mailbox store all of your e-mail from that box from the past week, from the past month, or just plain all of it. My AnandTech e-mail box is a nightmarish abyss of spam and clutter that I've done a horrible job curating, so that gets set to "past week."
What's evident is that the app is still designed as a way to check your e-mail in a pinch, not as a way to actually do your e-mail bookkeeping and keep up on all your correspondence. Unfortunately, the lack of a robust app ecosystem keeps power users from finding a more comprehensive e-mail management solution (much as it keeps power users from finding an alternative browser to IE10), so if just having e-mail threads organized by subject line and middling multi-mail selection and management isn't adequate for you, you're stuck.
Essentials: Calendar
Just as the People hub brings all of your contacts from all of your disparate social networking accounts under a single unifying banner, so the Calendar does with your events and calendars. The Calendar app is also essentially unchanged from Windows Phone 7: a single calendar aggregates your Google calendar with events from Facebook.
The complaint I've heard registered about Calendar is that it only allows for a single calendar, while Google allows you to have multiples. If you need multiple calendars to keep organized (for example, one with birthdays, one with tasks, one with meetings, and so on), this is probably going to be a dealbreaker. Note also that by default Calendar will integrate Facebook events you've been invited to but not actually responded to; this is something you can toggle off, but I'm confused as to why it's on in the first place.
Meanwhile, assuming you have it set to be the single text readout on the lock screen, the lock screen itself will tell you what, where, and when your next Calendar entry is.
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yankeeDDL - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Wow. This is the first time in ... what, 7? 8 years? ... since I read AnandTech, that I am disappointed about a review.I mean, what is this? Really? "A bit more editorial?" Is this a polite way to say that "objectivity" stays out of the door?
Come on: the whole idea of a smartphone is to be able to use whatever app will increase its usefulness, productivity, or fun.
If you need a phone to make phone calls and update Facebook you don't need a "smart"phone, or at least not one that sets you back $450!
Yes, the lackluster app store is a chicken and egg problem: if you don't buy a phone devs won't have incentives to develop apps and it'll never work.
But has anyone looked at the Windows Phone store? Top photo app "Photofunia"? Seriously?
Top free game: "Ragdoll run"?
Come on, I have tons of fun free games from my kids on my Android to keep them entertained when we travel. I have several books to read on the go (I prefer a larger phone than having to bring a phone and a tablet ... but that's just me).
Personally, I would love to see some key benefit of using Windows' platform (screen expansion, live VNC, remote execution, ...), but rather than leveraging on existing Windows desktop ecosystem, Microsoft has created a the Windows Phone platform from scratch, and what's worse, is that it is showing it down the desktop as well, killing what it had already going.
JPDVM2014 - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
So, you are saying that since the top free apps in two categories are something you don't think are fun or worthwhile, that this review is disappointing? Also, I believe that "editorial" does mean a certain amount of objectivity goes away. It is a personal opinion after all. I use a WP, and have tons of free games, and books to read on the go, so it must be just as good as android, right?yankeeDDL - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
No, I am not. I didn't want to bother listing all the top free apps on every single category, but I mentioned two that go a long way in Android and iOS in terms of popularity (Instagram? CameraZoon? PaperPhoto?).Instagram is a (was a?) booming social app for crying out loud.
But again, I only wanted to say that the apps market is a deserted land, IMHO.
That doesn't mean that someone can't find what is looking for but still, that does not change the fact that the offer/quality is abysmal compared to Andoid and iOS.
For me this is an enormous deal.
The article didn't even mention that Google went as far as negating WP support for most of his Apps, at least for now.
I don't know you but I normally buy a phone planning to use it for 3~4 years or more: the thought of being locked into a sub-par apps market when there are two glaring alternatives seems a no brainer to me.
Which goes back to my comment: I am sure there are plenty of people that prefer to use their smartphone more like a "dumb phone". Snap shome photo, call people and that's about it. Then I really don't see WP8 having any real limitations, but would it be worth the price? I say no, and that's my opinion.
DukeN - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
I probably use Gmail and Google Maps the most out of just about any set of apps.How is the experience on WP8?
(assuming the standard apps like ScoreMobile, Netflix, Kijiji, are available..)
s44 - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Not so great, mostly because Google isn't interested in boosting WP8.El Goog is cutting off the Exchange connector for new devices of non-paying Gmail users this week, so you won't get push until/unless MS implements IMAP idle (probably in another OS release that requires entirely new phones)...
As for Maps, there's no official app, and mobile IE doesn't play terribly well with the mobile site (Microsoft proprietary vs. Webkit).
zilexa - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Thanks for this article, very nice and pleasant to read.I fell in love with the Lumia 920. But its rocky release was bad.. and availability was worse. Now it's finally in stores and I tested one in the store. Way too big. I don't mind the weight, optical stabilization is actually an outcome for me so the extra weight is the price you pay.
But overall it's huge.
if there was a smaller version with the same high end features, would be a big hit.
Not like the 820, it's just lacks the good looks (I even think its ugly) and has a bad resolution: screen too big for such a resolution, definitely for a 2013 phone, which it is!
prdola0 - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
I have to say it again - why does Apple very time get shiny nice photos of their products and EVERYONE else is getting these terrible, crappy pictures like the one in the articles overview and in the article? This phone looks really nice in reality. Even small tech websites have better and higher quality pictures without all that dirt and fingerprints. Why not you?I've been trying to be polite, but never got an answer before. But now I have to say it straight - Anandtech is BIASED.
Dustin Sklavos - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Actually, it's a much more mundane and probably disappointing answer for you.Anand has the space and the equipment to take stellar photos, and he's the one that usually reviews the Apple products. I don't (though I do need to buy a new backdrop, admittedly).
prdola0 - Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - link
Well then it is biased. Since one vendor gets in fact better treatment, it's quite unfair for the others, even if unintended. Why not send the gear to Anand for taking pictures after you're done with the review?crispbp04 - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
I'm confused on the part talking about not supporting multiple calendars. I have multiple calendars working just fine. Facebook, Live, Exchange, and Outlook.com all integrate fine and I can pick and choose my calendars. Maybe it's a limitation of google calendars? It could be due to a 3rd party and not the fault of msft.