Hello, I am also really looking forward to an in-depth review of the Nokia Lumia 920. From the looks of it it seems like the next big thing but I would really like get some more information about it. The only question that remains for me is if I should take the jump to Windows Phone. Pretty please, review the Nokia when you get the chance!
Love my job, since I've been bringing in $5600… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online(Click on menu Home) http://goo.gl/wisS6
I have to write something now...every time I talk to a Microsoft representative I always asked them "when are you opening up native development?"...now that I'm tickled pink to see Windows NT on these phones, I have to put up or shut up lol.
...and that basically kills the OS. I mean most of the stuff you do on the web relies on JS performance and on mediocre hardware (ARM) and a poor browser that doesn't work that well.
How on earth is this mediocre hardware? You can't possibly be comparing WP to laptops. In that case, the A6 in the iPhone is terrible, and I can't figure out why we don't just have an ULV ivy bridge.
It's the exact same hardware in high end Android devices, and very competitive with iP5. And the non SoC stuff is arguably even better than other phones.
There will also be different browsers available I imagine. Chances are something like firefox will be released on WP.
Hmm, it does look that way if you disregard Sunspider which is the outlier and probably the most optimized for, with such a fast SoC the phone only trades blows with the 4S.
Even Nexus devices have no SD card. They want you to stream from the cloud using Google Music (on android) or their Xbox Music app (on WP8) and use their drop box cloud storage.
I don't want to rely solely on streaming from the cloud. Data is precious and this ain't a game of roulette.
I want reasonable quantities of onboard NAND and an mSD slot.
My Note 2 has 80GB total = 16GB onboard plus mSD 64GB.
Even my Zune has 80GB, albeit via a mechanical HDD.
My N900 has 64GB total = 32GB onboard plus mSD 32GB.
My X523 feature phone has 32GB via mSD.
Even so, 80GB of storage still seems too small. Especially if you are going to carry a good-sized collection of loss-less music and some videos, along with documents, etc.
----------
I would really like to replace my carry-everyday feature phone with a Windows Phone.
The HTC 8X is beautiful, but 2 things are missing now from all Windows Phones: The iPhone 5 has the best holdability and screen size, so a high-end 4" Windows Phone would be great. Also, Samsung Android devices provide mSD slots, which are crucial to expanding local storage.
---------------
As for what I've already got:
The N900 is weak on software, OS functionality, and ease of use. Windows Phone would fix that.
Unlike most users who are buying the Note 2 as a phone, I actually bought the Note 2 to use as a tablet. It's to replace my Kindle Fire. I found the Kindle Fire to be too limited on functionality, and it has no GPS or telephony radios.
The Note 2 is impractical to wear, but I got it for its incredible functionality and backpackability.
Windows Phone OEMs should target getting the functionality of the Note 2 squeezed into a 4" Windows Phone with dual-micro-SIMs, 64GB NAND onboard, and an mSDXC slot, so you can crank the storage up to 128GB or better.
I absolutely agree. I am not always where the cloud is available. This phone is yesterday. I thought MS would make the phone very usb friendly for external storage, DAC, etc.
exactly. I'd be cool be cool with cloud storage if there were no data caps. But there ARE. And if you're constantly streaming downloading from the cloud your already mediocre battery life will tank. That's crap.
Lumina 920 has twice the storage, and the Samsung ATIV has an sd slot.
It's unfortunate because on the looks and weight category I think HTC is the winner.
I can't understand why people keep saying this crap. It's a rectangle with colors, just the like Lumia, but otherwise the design language is quite unique and no one (who isn't brain dead) should have any trouble telling the 8X and the Lumia apart, especially in-person.
I disagree that Microsoft knows how to implement good thread scheduler. After so many years of potential time to replicate Linux/Unix/Solaris multithreading on Windows servers it is still much worse.
Podcast. Sorry to bug you but no one else comes close. The Verge has great coverage of Nexus devices hands on and fancy words etc. but only you guys do podcasts that are good.
Hi Brian, Thanks for the run down of your few days with WP8. Couple things I would love to hear about before the physical launch date! How about the interface software? The biggest issue I have with WP7 has been the lack of sync support with outlook. Also, Zune sucks. Zune software is buggy and it has abysmal file support.
And the Marketplace. What about the Marketplace confusion? Are we still supposed to jump around between xbox and live and zune accounts?
There are a lot of convoluted issues in the WP OS that need to be revised for WP8.
...has forgotten its identity. The elements that gave Metro character have been removed, such as ellipses and arrows. The same applies to Windows RT/8...it's increasingly all squares and increasingly less Metro.
I feel like Microsoft has lost sight of what the Metro design language was about: simplicity, efficiency, and intuitiveness. With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, they've lost the "intuitive" part.
Glad not to be the only one who feels that way. As an established iPhone user (3G, 4, 5) I've always found the UI-formerly-known-as-Metro to be elegant and distinctive. That distinction seems to be much diminished with WP8, although it appears that its functionality remains.
But functionality isn't something that the casual buyer, which is to say most buyers, can readily appreciate when they're looking at options in the phone store.
Too true. Newcomers will pick up that fancy new HTC 8X and not have any idea that there are more applications to the right because there is no arrow to bounce around and tell them there is more. I'm sure they'll discover it just by playing around, but to me that isn't enough. You shouldn't have to discover by accident how a UI works.
As a result of the above grievances, I'm not sure I want to upgrade my WP7.5 device to WP7.8 when released into the wild. Sure, I'll be missing out on some functionality, but from what I've seen the added features of 7.8 won't be enough to make up for the loss in character for the phone, and character is one of the reasons I bought it.
If I wanted pure functionality, I would have gone with Android.
I'll have to be convinced that 8 improves Windows phone to make it competitive to Android. feature wise. And Anandtech gave W7P an overrated review when it launched IMO.
I have a friend in the cell phone business (so he gets to try out lots of phones), he told me "Get a Nokia 920." He likes the Windows phone much better than an Android one.
I might just do that. Then again, I might wait, because I'm still not seeing the bleeding edge phones with Windows on them. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest factors that has held Microsoft OS phones back from the beginning. After the Win 7 phones came out there were some nice phones released, but "nice" isn't what I want, and I think I speak for a lot of people - we want the best smart phone we can get, and if it's Android then most people will buy it because it's a better phone, OS is secondary.
I mean, of all the phones I've seen reviewed here, the Note II looks like the best fit for me - but I want a Windows phone, so where does that leave me?
Well the hardware is basically identical. The best hardware out right now is the S4 (or the A6) with S4 pro just barely on the horizon and Tegra 4 months away. Windows phone has that. A lot of the flagship windows phones have their own things too. HTC has an amplifier for sound, and a never been done 2.1? (or 2.0?) MP front facing wide camera. Nokia has an insane (and also never been done except by them) 8.7MP camera that is WAY ahead of other phones. And wireless charging.
But those innovations might not mean much to you depending on how much you use your phone. I'm interested in the 8X because I skype a lot, but the Lumia sounds nice because of Nokia's apps, as well as the charging (interesting) and the camera (insanely good). They're definitely innovative, but "best hardware" is subjective. The underlying SoC is the same, but some of the software/other parts of the hardware are really what makes the difference.
I thought it was interesting that you say there was a lot of debate about removing the "unused space" on WP7's home screen, because as is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for 5 seconds, that empty space allows you to see more items simultaneously than you can on WP8.
Of course, the smaller tile size means you can see more items on WP8, but WP7 layout + WP8 smaller tiles size would maximize information density. The symmetry must be purely for marketing as seemed to be implied. Too bad. Less distinctive and less functional.
Also less intuitive. There is no arrow to tell new Windows Phone users that more is to be had with a swipe to the left (or a tap on said arrow). If they wanted to better utilize that black space, they could have added charms for such items as search or settings, things that would actually get used often enough to warrant such a position.
I do not like the new Start Screen at all, let alone the overall lack of change to the UI. Too many missed opportunities.
In that case, I stand corrected on the "intuitive" part regarding the home screen.
Still, I feel it lacks the character of the original.
Having put some more thought into it from the last post, I feel like a better use of the black area would have been charms representing programs running in the background...almost like the jump-lists from desktop Windows 7. Inside of an application, dragging the ellipsis would not only bring up the host of options, but the side bar as well.
Larger tiles just seems like a wasted opportunity. Almost lazily so.
The standard 1x1 tile in WP8 is larger than the standard 1x1 tile in WP7. Same goes for the 2x1. To make it worse, they didn't scale the icons inside of the tiles appropriately so now there is more unused blank space. To me, it looks off.
The functions they added are better, I'm not denying that. However, I think they missed an opportunity for real improvement in the UI. They have also wasted more space with all of that background tile than they did with WP7.
I agree with everything you said. The WP8 layout is bad, to the point where I won't be upgrading my 7.5 phone to 7.8. It's less functional and less attractive.
I might grudgingly upgrade to WP8 some day, but not any time soon.
I'm all for a compact phone that uses a 4.3" high resolution screen, but the 8X is not it. The dimensions are similar to the Galaxy S3, but the S3 has 25% larger screen area. Very strange design choice.
I may have missed this, but is there any support for Google apps at all? Most of my content is tied up in gmail, GDrive, calendar, etc. Will I have to start over and use only MS products to use this phone and OS?
In a moment of temporary insanity I went from an SG2 to the Nokia W7P. In hindsight the app support is just not there. Feature wise the '7 phone was a major letdown. -Don't make the mistake for a second that Android is a baseline of features. W7P was way behind on features I had learned to take for granted.
I think the "metro" interface has some noteworthy features. It;s far better than the outdatesd, over simplistic IOS. If it had app support closer to Android it would have been a contender.
Obviously I can't speak for W8P but I would look it over very carefully before you commit.
Now I'm even more excited. Been trying to get a Note 2 since release but reluctant to pay the high price for it. Maybe that was a good thing until WP8 phones come around. I like the design of the phone.
Im always a bit baffled when i see the battery life chart when you compare phones. The rest of the internet seems to agree that the Galaxy S3 has much better battery life than the One X, and that this is a big dissadvantage for the One X, but not in your reviews, why is that?
Just to show I have no inbuilt bias, I currently own a Lumia 800, Nexus 7 / iPod Touch and Windows 8 & Linux PCs, in the past I've used OS X.
A dual-core S4 (good) / Adreno 225 (Average) / RAM - 1 GB (ok) 512 MB (not good enough) These specs are just about passable for a head-end phone, but the quad-core S4 Pro with Adreno 320 is a big improvement, the A6 is excellent. ARM A15 SoC like the Exynos 5250 are already on the market, although not in a phone, Tegra 4 and Exynos 5450 will launch in Q1 to Q2 2013 and will destroy a regular S4.
People may argue that WP8 is smooth, big woof so was WP7, and so is iOS and thanks to Jelly Bean so is Android. When it comes to gaming, web browsing, apart from Sunspider (cough cheat) WP8 will age quickly. There are already reports that page loading and general app opening times are more sluggish than iPhone 5 / high-end Android, which Windows Phone like to hide with transition animations, which can irk after a while.
Will all my above comments be rendered mute by a yearly Hardware update cadence? That is the big question, if not WP8 will fail to offer the high-end attractions its rival platforms will offer, such as cutting edge games / 1080p video at 60 FPS etc because of lower spec hardware.
One of the biggest differences between WP7 and WP8, though, is that Microsoft built an upgrade path into the latter. WP7 was basically locked onto the launch hardware. From what I understand, WP8 can be scaled to up to 64 cores, and supports resolutions greater than 720p. I'm sure GPU and RAM improvements will be included.
"People may argue that WP8 is smooth, big woof so was WP7, and so is iOS and thanks to Jelly Bean so is Android. When it comes to gaming, web browsing, apart from Sunspider (cough cheat) WP8 will age quickly."
Do you only know how to read numbers, not words? Did you see the part of the review where he mentions how hardware support will be much broader for WP8? It has support for up to 64 cores. It won't age any more quickly than Android or iOS.
Incidentally, isn't calling Apple primarily a hardware company a wild oversimplification? Modern Apple software: OS X, iOS, iPhoto*, iMovie*, iDVD, GarageBand*, iTunes, Pages*, Numbers*, Keynote*, Safari,* QuickTime, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Logic, DVD Studio Pro, OS X Server, Remote, Apple Store, iBooks. Not to mention the dozens of applications associated with their operating systems.
Since it's becoming very apparent that some browsers optimize around certain browser tests, wouldn't it be better to just have page load speed comparison benchmarks with a few well known websites, or an aggregate of a few?
My biggest problem with the HTC 8X is that pokey amount of included storage. I'm quite eager to try the WP8 OS, it really does look nice to use and a change from iOS, but the lack of storage totally kills it for me.
Having 64GB on my iPhone 4S and now 5 isn't something I could give up, my phone is simply too full. I have probably 5GB of free space after music and video.
If these phones offered microSD slots that you could slip a 64GB card in, I'd consider them, but at 16GB (with a noticeable chunk taken for the OS), no thanks.
I don't know... the plastic case, and the bright colors... get to me, and not in a good way. I just compared this to the HTC Droid DNA and the DNA is more solid. But, I need something on AT&T's 4GLTE. I am in the U.S. (New York) and need speed, most of all, for sending large graphics files.
I’ve got this on AT&T at home in Atlanta and as a graphic artist the 4GLTe speed is almost mandatory for sending large files or surfing the Web for ideas. I imagine it might be the same for architects, mechanical or aerospace engineers, or anyone else who deals frequently with visuals.
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kenstockwell - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Can't wait for you to review that phone....Freak01 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Hello, I am also really looking forward to an in-depth review of the Nokia Lumia 920. From the looks of it it seems like the next big thing but I would really like get some more information about it. The only question that remains for me is if I should take the jump to Windows Phone. Pretty please, review the Nokia when you get the chance!Zstream - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Nice phone :)BrianDustin - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Love my job, since I've been bringing in $5600… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online(Click on menu Home)http://goo.gl/wisS6
ol1bit - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
What does this have to do with the review?I like they are making fundamental core changes to the OS that were required to really compete. Still have a ways to go, but looking good!
AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - link
That's a standard spam message that has been appearing latelycknobman - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I cant wait to see a full in depth review of Windows Phone 8 and both HTC and Nokia phones.This was a good start.
Here at the office we already have a couple of Surface RT tablets floating around and they are very impressive.
mantikos - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
There is VPN supportkarasaj - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
When is windows phone officially released/do we have any idea when we might see real reviews?Still so sad that the Lumia 920 is AT&T only. Is there any information on that Samsung Odyssey they talked about?
noeldillabough - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Can't wait for the SDK!I have to write something now...every time I talk to a Microsoft representative I always asked them "when are you opening up native development?"...now that I'm tickled pink to see Windows NT on these phones, I have to put up or shut up lol.
beginner99 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
...and that basically kills the OS. I mean most of the stuff you do on the web relies on JS performance and on mediocre hardware (ARM) and a poor browser that doesn't work that well.karasaj - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
How on earth is this mediocre hardware? You can't possibly be comparing WP to laptops. In that case, the A6 in the iPhone is terrible, and I can't figure out why we don't just have an ULV ivy bridge.It's the exact same hardware in high end Android devices, and very competitive with iP5. And the non SoC stuff is arguably even better than other phones.
There will also be different browsers available I imagine. Chances are something like firefox will be released on WP.
melgross - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
The hardware in this is ok, but MIT doesn't seem great. Certainly not in performance. The iPhone beats it hands down.tipoo - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Hmm, it does look that way if you disregard Sunspider which is the outlier and probably the most optimized for, with such a fast SoC the phone only trades blows with the 4S.andrewaggb - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Two things bug me about this phone.Middle of pack battery life. That sucks. I hope another WP8 device has market leading/competitive battery life.
No SD slot and 16 gigs of storage. Personally I'd like a higher end option.
cmdrdredd - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Even Nexus devices have no SD card. They want you to stream from the cloud using Google Music (on android) or their Xbox Music app (on WP8) and use their drop box cloud storage.hrrmph - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I don't want to rely solely on streaming from the cloud. Data is precious and this ain't a game of roulette.I want reasonable quantities of onboard NAND and an mSD slot.
My Note 2 has 80GB total = 16GB onboard plus mSD 64GB.
Even my Zune has 80GB, albeit via a mechanical HDD.
My N900 has 64GB total = 32GB onboard plus mSD 32GB.
My X523 feature phone has 32GB via mSD.
Even so, 80GB of storage still seems too small. Especially if you are going to carry a good-sized collection of loss-less music and some videos, along with documents, etc.
----------
I would really like to replace my carry-everyday feature phone with a Windows Phone.
The HTC 8X is beautiful, but 2 things are missing now from all Windows Phones: The iPhone 5 has the best holdability and screen size, so a high-end 4" Windows Phone would be great. Also, Samsung Android devices provide mSD slots, which are crucial to expanding local storage.
---------------
As for what I've already got:
The N900 is weak on software, OS functionality, and ease of use. Windows Phone would fix that.
Unlike most users who are buying the Note 2 as a phone, I actually bought the Note 2 to use as a tablet. It's to replace my Kindle Fire. I found the Kindle Fire to be too limited on functionality, and it has no GPS or telephony radios.
The Note 2 is impractical to wear, but I got it for its incredible functionality and backpackability.
Windows Phone OEMs should target getting the functionality of the Note 2 squeezed into a 4" Windows Phone with dual-micro-SIMs, 64GB NAND onboard, and an mSDXC slot, so you can crank the storage up to 128GB or better.
-
Geraldo8022 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I absolutely agree. I am not always where the cloud is available. This phone is yesterday. I thought MS would make the phone very usb friendly for external storage, DAC, etc.darwinosx - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
No..Google knows that SD cards on Android sucks.Taft12 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
How does no-SD-card-on-Nexus help those of us who wanted an SD slot on this phone?mantikos - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
You get 25 GB free with SkyDrive so 16+25N4g4rok - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
They dropped it to 7 a little while ago.mantikos - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Actually if you signed up back then, you got to keep your 25 for freeTaft12 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Hurry! To the time machine!MadMan007 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Cool, so I can download as much of my SkyDrive data as I want without any data or billing implications?andrewaggb - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
exactly. I'd be cool be cool with cloud storage if there were no data caps. But there ARE. And if you're constantly streaming downloading from the cloud your already mediocre battery life will tank. That's crap.Lumina 920 has twice the storage, and the Samsung ATIV has an sd slot.
It's unfortunate because on the looks and weight category I think HTC is the winner.
karasaj - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
So you're NEVER going to have access to wifi, maybe once a day even, to download from skydrive?I'm not making an argument for excluding SD cards, but you can always download for free from skydrive any relevant music.
Assimilator87 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
If I hadn't read the article, I would've thought the 8X was a Lumia with an HTC logo on it.kyuu - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I can't understand why people keep saying this crap. It's a rectangle with colors, just the like Lumia, but otherwise the design language is quite unique and no one (who isn't brain dead) should have any trouble telling the 8X and the Lumia apart, especially in-person.mantikos - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
...If I hadn't read your full name I would have thought you were calling yourself a beast of burdenmaximumGPU - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Thanks for the in depth preview Brian, it's shaping up to be quite the fight between this device and the lumia 920.did the relatively low brightness levels cause you any concern during your time with the phone?
will792 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I disagree that Microsoft knows how to implement good thread scheduler. After so many years of potential time to replicate Linux/Unix/Solaris multithreading on Windows servers it is still much worse.mantikos - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
BSdarwinosx - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Learn something about schedulers in general and Microsofts implementation then you will see how lousy it is.mantikos - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Oh ok, so because I disagree I don't know any better...gotchaAlucard291 - Monday, November 5, 2012 - link
Well your argument has been strong and well put. /sSorry but no it wasn't. Saying "BS" and expecting a normal reply?
Yes you don't seem to know any better.
darwinosx - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Microsoft's thread scheduler has always sucked. Was surprised to see you say different Brian as this is well known.Zink - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Podcast. Sorry to bug you but no one else comes close. The Verge has great coverage of Nexus devices hands on and fancy words etc. but only you guys do podcasts that are good.softdrinkviking - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Hi Brian,Thanks for the run down of your few days with WP8.
Couple things I would love to hear about before the physical launch date!
How about the interface software? The biggest issue I have with WP7 has been the lack of sync support with outlook.
Also, Zune sucks. Zune software is buggy and it has abysmal file support.
And the Marketplace. What about the Marketplace confusion? Are we still supposed to jump around between xbox and live and zune accounts?
There are a lot of convoluted issues in the WP OS that need to be revised for WP8.
karasaj - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Zune has been replaced by the xbox music software etc. I believe.mantikos - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
There isn't an XBOX MUSIC s/w - it is a Windows Phone connector s/wBob Todd - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I'm excited that I'm today's fictional 100,000 visitor, but you guys are getting served some annoying full page ads (with audio no less).http://globalpromotions.noraust.com/?sov=68387902&...
Can you please track these down and kill them with fire?
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
This is one reason I use NoScript on Firefox; I don't see those at all.Anandtech really should kill these ASAP though, sleaze advertising reflects on the site, poorly.
;)
Sufo - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Bah, NoScript is a pain in the ass. A decent adblock will catch it all.von Krupp - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
...has forgotten its identity. The elements that gave Metro character have been removed, such as ellipses and arrows. The same applies to Windows RT/8...it's increasingly all squares and increasingly less Metro.I feel like Microsoft has lost sight of what the Metro design language was about: simplicity, efficiency, and intuitiveness. With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, they've lost the "intuitive" part.
NCM - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Glad not to be the only one who feels that way. As an established iPhone user (3G, 4, 5) I've always found the UI-formerly-known-as-Metro to be elegant and distinctive. That distinction seems to be much diminished with WP8, although it appears that its functionality remains.But functionality isn't something that the casual buyer, which is to say most buyers, can readily appreciate when they're looking at options in the phone store.
von Krupp - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Too true. Newcomers will pick up that fancy new HTC 8X and not have any idea that there are more applications to the right because there is no arrow to bounce around and tell them there is more. I'm sure they'll discover it just by playing around, but to me that isn't enough. You shouldn't have to discover by accident how a UI works.As a result of the above grievances, I'm not sure I want to upgrade my WP7.5 device to WP7.8 when released into the wild. Sure, I'll be missing out on some functionality, but from what I've seen the added features of 7.8 won't be enough to make up for the loss in character for the phone, and character is one of the reasons I bought it.
If I wanted pure functionality, I would have gone with Android.
Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
I agree, I won't be upgrading to 7.8 either. 7.5 was the perfect design and I'm kind of mad they caved to pressure to change it.Don't know what kind of smartphone I'll be going with next, to be honest.
Chaser - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I'll have to be convinced that 8 improves Windows phone to make it competitive to Android. feature wise. And Anandtech gave W7P an overrated review when it launched IMO.darwinosx - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Android is just a poor copy of iOS so it shouldn't be hard to do.Chaser - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Maybe in your iSheep blinded fanboi eyes. Try looking at Android for 10 minutes next time before you broadcast your ignorance again.Sabresiberian - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
I have a friend in the cell phone business (so he gets to try out lots of phones), he told me "Get a Nokia 920." He likes the Windows phone much better than an Android one.I might just do that. Then again, I might wait, because I'm still not seeing the bleeding edge phones with Windows on them. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest factors that has held Microsoft OS phones back from the beginning. After the Win 7 phones came out there were some nice phones released, but "nice" isn't what I want, and I think I speak for a lot of people - we want the best smart phone we can get, and if it's Android then most people will buy it because it's a better phone, OS is secondary.
I mean, of all the phones I've seen reviewed here, the Note II looks like the best fit for me - but I want a Windows phone, so where does that leave me?
Still waiting, that's where.
;)
karasaj - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Well the hardware is basically identical. The best hardware out right now is the S4 (or the A6) with S4 pro just barely on the horizon and Tegra 4 months away. Windows phone has that. A lot of the flagship windows phones have their own things too. HTC has an amplifier for sound, and a never been done 2.1? (or 2.0?) MP front facing wide camera. Nokia has an insane (and also never been done except by them) 8.7MP camera that is WAY ahead of other phones. And wireless charging.But those innovations might not mean much to you depending on how much you use your phone. I'm interested in the 8X because I skype a lot, but the Lumia sounds nice because of Nokia's apps, as well as the charging (interesting) and the camera (insanely good). They're definitely innovative, but "best hardware" is subjective. The underlying SoC is the same, but some of the software/other parts of the hardware are really what makes the difference.
Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
The 920 is bleeding edge hardware. The camera is an evolutionary leap above other smartphone cameras.wrack - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Does WP8 have orientation lock setting? I hate it when the screen rotates when I am reading news on the bed lying on side.karocage - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
I thought it was interesting that you say there was a lot of debate about removing the "unused space" on WP7's home screen, because as is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for 5 seconds, that empty space allows you to see more items simultaneously than you can on WP8.Of course, the smaller tile size means you can see more items on WP8, but WP7 layout + WP8 smaller tiles size would maximize information density. The symmetry must be purely for marketing as seemed to be implied. Too bad. Less distinctive and less functional.
von Krupp - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Also less intuitive. There is no arrow to tell new Windows Phone users that more is to be had with a swipe to the left (or a tap on said arrow). If they wanted to better utilize that black space, they could have added charms for such items as search or settings, things that would actually get used often enough to warrant such a position.I do not like the new Start Screen at all, let alone the overall lack of change to the UI. Too many missed opportunities.
dagamer34 - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
The arrow shows up when you scroll to the bottom.von Krupp - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
In that case, I stand corrected on the "intuitive" part regarding the home screen.Still, I feel it lacks the character of the original.
Having put some more thought into it from the last post, I feel like a better use of the black area would have been charms representing programs running in the background...almost like the jump-lists from desktop Windows 7. Inside of an application, dragging the ellipsis would not only bring up the host of options, but the side bar as well.
Larger tiles just seems like a wasted opportunity. Almost lazily so.
jamyryals - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Larger tiles? The large tile and medium tiles were both in WP7. The new tile is the small one.The new home screen is better.
von Krupp - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
The standard 1x1 tile in WP8 is larger than the standard 1x1 tile in WP7. Same goes for the 2x1. To make it worse, they didn't scale the icons inside of the tiles appropriately so now there is more unused blank space. To me, it looks off.The functions they added are better, I'm not denying that. However, I think they missed an opportunity for real improvement in the UI. They have also wasted more space with all of that background tile than they did with WP7.
Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
I agree with everything you said. The WP8 layout is bad, to the point where I won't be upgrading my 7.5 phone to 7.8. It's less functional and less attractive.I might grudgingly upgrade to WP8 some day, but not any time soon.
KaarlisK - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
...with the ability to plug in a monitor, keyboard and mouse and run Desktop apps...codedivine - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Does the browser support text reflow?TrackSmart - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
I'm all for a compact phone that uses a 4.3" high resolution screen, but the 8X is not it. The dimensions are similar to the Galaxy S3, but the S3 has 25% larger screen area. Very strange design choice.nativetexan - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
I may have missed this, but is there any support for Google apps at all? Most of my content is tied up in gmail, GDrive, calendar, etc. Will I have to start over and use only MS products to use this phone and OS?darwinosx - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
If Google does it and Microsoft allows it.Chaser - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
In a moment of temporary insanity I went from an SG2 to the Nokia W7P. In hindsight the app support is just not there. Feature wise the '7 phone was a major letdown. -Don't make the mistake for a second that Android is a baseline of features. W7P was way behind on features I had learned to take for granted.I think the "metro" interface has some noteworthy features. It;s far better than the outdatesd, over simplistic IOS. If it had app support closer to Android it would have been a contender.
Obviously I can't speak for W8P but I would look it over very carefully before you commit.
Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
What features were you missing?Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
Google Calendar and Gmail work pretty well. Google Drive I don't know about, I have a 25GB SkyDrive.The0ne - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Now I'm even more excited. Been trying to get a Note 2 since release but reluctant to pay the high price for it. Maybe that was a good thing until WP8 phones come around. I like the design of the phone.ABR - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Sorry for the OT but could not find anywhere else to ask about this -- is Anand tech no longer providing RSS feeds on purpose?OCN's_3930k - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
You have me torn again. Great job.iamkyle - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
And yet the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha scores 92250 in BrowserMark handily beating Windows Phone 8.I will wait for BB10 thanks.
spejr - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Im always a bit baffled when i see the battery life chart when you compare phones. The rest of the internet seems to agree that the Galaxy S3 has much better battery life than the One X, and that this is a big dissadvantage for the One X, but not in your reviews, why is that?foolsgambit11 - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Shouldn't that be 5:3?Grandpa - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Why take a chance on a Windows phone when Android phones are just fine? Doesn't make sense to me.lithium451 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
ATT only (groan) and no user-replaceable battery.von Krupp - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Also coming to T-Mobile and Verizon. The latter's version will be sporting wireless charging.Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
Sprint is the only carrier that won't have the 8X.R101 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Is there any info on bluetooth support - does Windows 8 provide phonebook entries and call history over bluetooth or not?R101 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Windows PHONE 8, just to be more precise..Jorange - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Just to show I have no inbuilt bias, I currently own a Lumia 800, Nexus 7 / iPod Touch and Windows 8 & Linux PCs, in the past I've used OS X.A dual-core S4 (good) / Adreno 225 (Average) / RAM - 1 GB (ok) 512 MB (not good enough) These specs are just about passable for a head-end phone, but the quad-core S4 Pro with Adreno 320 is a big improvement, the A6 is excellent. ARM A15 SoC like the Exynos 5250 are already on the market, although not in a phone, Tegra 4 and Exynos 5450 will launch in Q1 to Q2 2013 and will destroy a regular S4.
People may argue that WP8 is smooth, big woof so was WP7, and so is iOS and thanks to Jelly Bean so is Android. When it comes to gaming, web browsing, apart from Sunspider (cough cheat) WP8 will age quickly. There are already reports that page loading and general app opening times are more sluggish than iPhone 5 / high-end Android, which Windows Phone like to hide with transition animations, which can irk after a while.
Will all my above comments be rendered mute by a yearly Hardware update cadence? That is the big question, if not WP8 will fail to offer the high-end attractions its rival platforms will offer, such as cutting edge games / 1080p video at 60 FPS etc because of lower spec hardware.
von Krupp - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
One of the biggest differences between WP7 and WP8, though, is that Microsoft built an upgrade path into the latter. WP7 was basically locked onto the launch hardware. From what I understand, WP8 can be scaled to up to 64 cores, and supports resolutions greater than 720p. I'm sure GPU and RAM improvements will be included.Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
"People may argue that WP8 is smooth, big woof so was WP7, and so is iOS and thanks to Jelly Bean so is Android. When it comes to gaming, web browsing, apart from Sunspider (cough cheat) WP8 will age quickly."Do you only know how to read numbers, not words? Did you see the part of the review where he mentions how hardware support will be much broader for WP8? It has support for up to 64 cores. It won't age any more quickly than Android or iOS.
Freak01 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - link
Once again, and I'm sure there are others who would would really like to see a proper review of the new Nokia. Anand...?ex2bot - Thursday, November 1, 2012 - link
Incidentally, isn't calling Apple primarily a hardware company a wild oversimplification? Modern Apple software: OS X, iOS, iPhoto*, iMovie*, iDVD, GarageBand*, iTunes, Pages*, Numbers*, Keynote*, Safari,* QuickTime, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Logic, DVD Studio Pro, OS X Server, Remote, Apple Store, iBooks. Not to mention the dozens of applications associated with their operating systems.* Versions for both mobile and desktop
JNo - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
"For the platform WP8 is absolutely an evolutionary step, rather than another dramatic re-imagining of Microsoft's vision for smartphones.""At the same time WP8 feels like a dramatic update over WP7.5"
These sentences in the conclusion seem somewhat contradictory... there might be good reasons why they are not but, if any, they are not clear to me.
tipoo - Saturday, November 3, 2012 - link
Since it's becoming very apparent that some browsers optimize around certain browser tests, wouldn't it be better to just have page load speed comparison benchmarks with a few well known websites, or an aggregate of a few?righteousdesigner - Saturday, November 3, 2012 - link
Can anyone tell me if TMO version of HTC 8x will be LTE futureproof like GSN2?righteousdesigner - Saturday, November 3, 2012 - link
Will TMO version of HTC 8x will be LTE futureproof like GSN2?Mitch89 - Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - link
My biggest problem with the HTC 8X is that pokey amount of included storage. I'm quite eager to try the WP8 OS, it really does look nice to use and a change from iOS, but the lack of storage totally kills it for me.Having 64GB on my iPhone 4S and now 5 isn't something I could give up, my phone is simply too full. I have probably 5GB of free space after music and video.
If these phones offered microSD slots that you could slip a 64GB card in, I'd consider them, but at 16GB (with a noticeable chunk taken for the OS), no thanks.
roso - Thursday, November 15, 2012 - link
according to htc website it only has a g-sensor - that´s not a gyro-sensor!HTC ONE X e.g. has both: g-sensor & gyro-sensor....
MichaelEvans - Monday, December 24, 2012 - link
I don't know... the plastic case, and the bright colors... get to me, and not in a good way. I just compared this to the HTC Droid DNA and the DNA is more solid. But, I need something on AT&T's 4GLTE. I am in the U.S. (New York) and need speed, most of all, for sending large graphics files.BlueInAtlanta - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - link
I’ve got this on AT&T at home in Atlanta and as a graphic artist the 4GLTe speed is almost mandatory for sending large files or surfing the Web for ideas. I imagine it might be the same for architects, mechanical or aerospace engineers, or anyone else who deals frequently with visuals.