HTC Windows Phone 8X review

As its clumsy name suggests, this is HTC’s first Windows Phone 8 handset – we’ll just call it the HTC 8X from now on. On the surface, Windows Phone 8 is only a mildly tweaked version of Microsoft’s slick mobile operating system, but there have been quite a few changes underneath. The OS now supports dual-core processors, such as the HTC 8X’s 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4, as well as high screen resolutions; the HTC 8X has a 720×1,280-pixel display.

It’s a slim and light phone, but it doesn’t have quite the class of handsets such as the Nokia Lumia 800 and the new Windows Phone 8-based Nokia Lumia 920. The rubber back makes the phone comfortable to hold, but we don’t think it will wear quite as well as Nokia’s polycarbonate shells. The screen is a 4.3in model, which we feel is a good compromise between easy web browsing and a reasonably pocket-friendly handset; the Lumia 920, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, can feel huge in your pocket or hand.

Speaking of web browsing the HTC 8X isn’t a 4G-capable handset, so it’s not available on the new EE 4G network, nor will you be able to upgrade to such a connection later. this may not bother some people, but it does mean the Nokia 920 is far better future-proofed and should hold its value far better too.

The display’s resolution gives it a high pixels-per-inch figure of 342ppi, so text is clear and sharp. It’s by no means a bad display, but it pales compared to the Lumia 920’s screen. Nokia’s panel has far punchier colours, better contrast and deeper blacks. We were also disappointed with the phone’s battery life; at just five and a half hours when playing a video file on repeat, it lasted an hour and a half less than the Lumia 920 and half the time of battery life champions such as the Samsung Galaxy S3.

The rubber back makes the phone comfortable to hold, but we’re not sure it’ll wear as well as Nokia’s polycarbonate unibody

We have no complaints about the phone’s performance, though. In the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, we saw an incredible 906.1ms from the HTC 8X, which makes this even faster than the Motorola Razr i and iPhone 5. The speed shows when web browsing, as pages load in a snap.

Windows Phone 8 has several headline features. Third-party apps can now take over the lock screen, so you can have Facebook scroll through your profile pictures while the phone is locked, for example. You can also resize Live Tiles, making them small, medium or large. This makes sense, as some tiles, such as Internet Explorer, don’t display any supplementary information so can safely be left as small as possible. You can then make your People or Photos tile as big as possible and have plenty of room for your pictures and mugshots of your friends.

There’s also a new Rooms function. This is a more powerful version of Windows Phone’s Groups. You can create a variety of Rooms, and invite contacts to join the Room. They don’t have to have a Windows Phone, but they do need a Windows Live account. Invites are sent as a text with a link, which then goes to a Windows Live sign-in page. After that you’re informed that you have been invited to join a Windows Phone Room, and can click a link to join.

Rooms helps you share things easily with small groups of people

What you can do in a room depends on whether you have a Windows Phone mobile or not. Windows Phone 8 owners have a dedicated Rooms view showing members of the Room, and which lets you send emails to Room members, use instant messenger and share photos and notes. Users on other platforms will receive the mails, but will need to access Windows Live’s web applications and Skydrive in order to see calendar appointments, shared photos and notes.

If you’re running Windows 8 on your Desktop, everything from your Room is integrated into Windows 8’s Start apps. Rooms is a strange concept to get your head around, but we can see that having shared notes and a calendar for a limited group of contacts could be very useful.

With Kid’s corner, you can lock down your phone to only the content you want your kids to see

The other main new feature is Kid’s corner. This locks down your phone, so you can give it to your child to play with without worrying about them wiping your contacts or emailing gibberish to your boss. There are four categories: Games, Music, Videos and Apps, and you can select individual items within each category to share. You can also set a PIN, so that even if your child resets the phone they can’t access anything important.

The HTC 8X has an 8-megapixel camera and, as we’ve started to expect from HTC, it’s very good. Pictures taken both outside and indoors are sharp and clear. Indoor shots have some noise apparent, but we find this acceptable compared to the excessive noise reduction we saw from the Nokia Lumia 920’s camera. The one problem we had was that shots tended to be overexposed, leading to loss of detail in lighter areas – in one of our photos the clouds in the sky were almost invisible.

Photos are sharp with punchy colours, but overexposure leads the clouds to disappear

Zooming in shows plenty of detail, however

The overexposure is more of a problem in videos, though, leading to overly-pallid complexions and blown-out lighter areas. Videos can’t match the Lumia 920’s, thanks to the Nokia phone’s more accurate exposure and optical image stabilisation.

The HTC 8X takes lovely, if overexposed, photos

The HTC 8X is a solid rather than spectacular Windows Phone 8 handset. We appreciated its high-quality camera, but in terms of build and screen quality it can’t quite match Nokia’s new Lumia 920. The Lumia 920 is around another £50 SIM-free and a couple of pounds a month on a contract, but we think it’s worth the extra.