HTC - Windows Phone 8X 4G with 8GB Cell Phone - California Blue (AT&T)

I dislike Apple products and I have enjoyed using Windows for as long as I remember. I originally planned on buying a Droid when we switched providers, but then I saw the Windows 8X by HTC. It was beautiful, original in color and design (I have the blue but had initially wanted the firefly yellow), so incredibly easy to use, and has a great interface. I have Windows 8 on my home computer, and from the phone, it was unreasonably easy to set up the SkyDrive to share all of my pictures, videos, documents... I can access my phone from my computer and vice-versa, as long as I have set the things I want access to up on the SkyDrive beforehand. It has a decent amount of storage space and really outstanding picture/sound quality. The only thing I have found that I dislike about the phone itself is that, being on the Windows operating system and thus not on the Droid or iTunes marketplaces, there are comparatively few apps available. Sure, there is an app for just about anything, but they aren't the same apps we all know and love from both Apple and Android. You have to weed through a lot of sub-par apps to get to the good ones. That being said, I love my new phone. I've had about a month and a half to play with it, and I love it more now than I did the day that I got it. I would definitely recommend this fun, unique phone to anyone who asked.

Ok, Now I understand that windows doesn't have the the app availability of say android or apple, but major apps like Capital One not being available is kind of a deal breaker for me. Yes, you can go to the web browser, however the web browser is pretty bad as well. You never know what you will get, whether it be the mobile site, or the full site. There is also the missing forward button in your web browser too, so if you accidentally clicked back, your just out of luck as far as that is concerned. The os is very appealing visually, with the live tiles, and the fluid movements, but there are so many limitations that I found myself just using my old Note 2 that I unlocked from tmobile, even though it has a cracked screen, instead. The quality of the apps available is also horrid. The same app available to android and apple has 90-95% more features than the app available to windows phone. The camera on this phone is just bad as well. I tried so many different things, from propping my self on something to steady my hand, changing different settings, lighting, distance, everything, all to no avail. I could NOT get a clear image out of this camera. Just absolutely inexcusable for a camera in a phone in this generation. My old ORIGINAL razr, the v3, was even able to capture a clear image, and that was introduced on 04. Do I use my phone as my main camera? No. But on the random occasion that I don't have a camera on me, and I need to take a spontaneous picture, I would like to be able to do so. If you use your phone as a gps, make sure you allot yourself PLENTY of time to set that feature up. I was unaware that you are required to use a.t.t navigator, and while trying to set this up after about 7 or 8 minutes I gave up and just called for directions. I had to "verify" my phone with at minimum of 3 different codes texted to me. I gave up after I was sent the third code. My main love of this device, is actually is music capabilities. I wish I had an on board equalizer to level out the settings like I like them to be, but the beats audio made the experience pretty amazing. Pair them up with, of course, some beats in ear headphones, or in my case my SOL Republic AMPS HD, and the experience is pretty outstanding. Another high note of this device is battery life. It will last for hours on end, especially in standby mode. Since I use mine as pretty much a glorified mp3 player, it will last for 2-3 days without having to charge. Long story short, this is good as an entry level phone for those who don't know, or don't need the usability of a full fledged smartphone, or as a portable music player. I use it for the latter, and I'm perfectly content with the device.

So far' a great phone. What needs improving, 1] IE Browser doesn't alway's work well with some sites, needs some tweeking. 2] Should allow for third party browsers 3] Tile screen would be nice if it would allow some backgrounds, live or not! 4] Music player needs some upgrades for ease of use. 5] Touch screen to touchy, needs an adjustment setting for sensitivity. 6] Voice guided navigation would be nice. 7] HTC Needs a better understanding of the OS for better cust support. 8] The zoom is horrid on the camera, needs a manual function, like using the volume buttons for zooming! What is nice! 1] Windows phone app for Mac, that now seems fixed, works really nice:) 2] Just the general dynamics of the phone is awesome! 3] There needs to be more basic apps available for the OS. Compared to my Android of the past.

I really love this phone a lot. I'm very pleased with how well thought out this phone is. The buttons are exactly where they need to be in order to handle the phone with ease. Buttons are large and the touchscreen is super smooth. When I call clients on the speaker phone, they love it and say it is super clear and they can't hear background noise. The color is gorgeous too. I'm a huge microsoft user, which is great when it comes to this phone. I can see immediately if I have email, or what's on my calendars' schedule. It's really super convenient to do a quick check without having to do a full login, especially when I'm in a meeting. I don't like, however, that I always seem to keep hitting that search button all the time. It's a bit annoying but I can live with it. I don't like the battery. It runs out FAST. I am not on my phone often, and when I am it is to quickly check email or a less than ten minute phone call a couple of times a day. But the battery runs out within 8-10 hours. Charges fairly quickly though. It's just inconvenient when I travel to have the battery die so quickly. all in all, this is a really great phone. the battery isn't THAT inconvenient when it comes to looking at the phone as a whole.

The 8X is one of the best Windows Phones out there today. Things that I noted during my review are below: Probably the greatest attribute this device has, above all others, is its design. I have found that when people see the phone, their very first instinct is to touch it, and feel the soft-touch coating that few phones can match. More than just the material design, however, the internal layout of the device makes the device feel very different, and much more even in its weight distribution. The squared-off corners of the body only serve to emphasize the feeling that this device is a physical tile, and the sharp edge of the device makes it feel as if the phone is much thinner than the spec sheet would imply. Both the external speaker and audio out jacks provide impressive sound quality with low noise, no doubt due to the 2.55V amp. The screen is great, bar none. HTC has done a great job with a device that has accurate colors and amazing viewing angles, with more than adequate outdoor brightness. However, I did notice that some angles had a tendency to have slight color shift while others did not, most likely the result of the screen technology used. All in all, these were minor issues that did not detract from the experience. The 2.1MP FFC had quality that really put it on another level. Video chats were no longer a mess of blur. The rear-facing camera was just as great, although the best shots required a steady hand and tap to capture rather than using the camera button, which required much more finesse as the impulse to release the camera button after taking the shot was required, in order to avoid shaking the phone during capture. Sharpness was also great, and general color accuracy and dynamic range was more than great. Overall, antenna design was on par with other devices, although on the AT&T version it is much more willing to drop down to a lower air interface, ie LTE to 3G, 3G to E, even if the reception was identical. GPS was rock solid and could easily lock on to 13 foot horizontal and vertical accuracy, even when on a flight with no data connection to provide assistance data.

Let’s first begin with the main highlights of this device, design, build quality, screen and camera! When you first meet the 8x you will have a pleasant surprise, it’s just gorgeous and immediately hits you with its finest build material, the unibody shell is very rigid and has a very nice texture with excellent grip, the screen is protected by a metal frame and all the hardware button are made from metal of the same color as the phone, I have the funky blue version but after meeting the matte black 8x with its metal, black and glossy HTC logo I realized it’s looks even better, it screams class and upper end, words will not explain it enough until you meet the 8x in person. The design is so good that everyone who has seen this phone was blown away. The second best thing about this device is the screen, it’s razor sharp! At 340ppi it’s actually higher than Apple’s retina display, colors are also expertly calibrated, the screen is laminated so it appears seamless and floating over the gorilla glass surface, it's matches the One X now legendary SLCD2 screen, sadly certain angles don't match the flawless view angles on the One X. The screen is 4.3 inch which might feel small for One X lovers but size will always depend on your taste. The third best thing about this phone are the cameras, yup both cameras, the main camera offers everything good in the One X camera and improves it further, mainly the low light performance is much improved over the One X with better lighting and less noise, I was just a little disappointed it misses the fast shutter burst mode on the One X. Meanwhile the front camera has one of a kind wide angle lens where you can grab an entire room with one click, it’s almost surreal, perfect for taking pictures of yourself with friends/family, it’s also outputs in high quality with perfect colors and little noise (unlike the usual front camera quality) you will never run out of fun ideas using this camera, I just have one complaint which is the slight slowness in the viewfinder, I guess it was inevitable with such high quality processing. The main camera however is very speedy with super fast shutter speed and did I mention it has a dedicated physical camera button? Video capture is excellent and HTC also offers photo enhancement software out of box, once you grab a photo you can edit and improve it using the photo enhancer app, in short it’s just an excellent and fun phone for photography. Audio quality is equally excellent on every output thanks to the built-in amplifiers. As for battery life, I don’t usually abuse my device beyond phone, camera and social features, in other words I don’t spend hours at the browser or gaming and so the phone easily lasts over one day, sometimes closing two days. I’m usually an Android user, but the windows operating system felt surprisingly intuitive, things are so much simpler to do and the minimalist/unified elegant UI feels like a nice fresh change. I really like the touch keyboard and the improvements offered by The windows OS, the OS is known for being buttery smooth and it’s even faster with the 8x speedy S4 dual core processor, and despite being a “closed” OS it’s still a lot more practical than iOS, for example you can access your phone storage by simply plugging it to your PC and you can share files with any other device using Bluetooth, I'm just annoyed most 3D games on the windows store still do not yet support 720p screen and therefore they look pixelated on the super dense screen, HTC/Microsoft should aggressively push developers to better support their OS and provide more apps. In short compared to the much bulkier less attractive lumi920 and like many expert reviews concluded, the HTC 8x is simply the best Windows Phone 8.

I bought this phone to give my wife means to conttect her Netbook to the internet. It works prefectly and I have tried a number of othe products like Mi-Fi, USB sticks from NetZero and even the built in capacity to do 3G. None worked were she lives. This worked the first time and every time. I set it up so all she has to do is tap a tile and it takes he to were she wants to go, like her faviorte internet site, e-mail or even FaceBook. She is not a tecky but she was able to master it after short period. I am giving serious consideration to getting one to replace my iPhone 4 ios 6.01. There is so much to tell you about Windows 8 I can't fit it all in here..........try it you like it!

well i like it but it jus so light weighted it get lost at times but it operate ok i so use to the window phones so i already knew how to pretty much operate it i jus thought since it came with beat that it would come with ear phones but the phone is okay im still getting use to it