I usually don't review anything, but I figured since I've been using one of these phones for the past 4 months, and I am also very familiar with Andriod and ios that I could enlighten some of the people here at VGC since it seems fairly common place around here to either criticize or praise products or services without ever actually having tried them. I can't even count the number of posts I have seen around here where someone bashes Bing even though they never use it, or IE and then they claim to have not used anything but Chrome since 2007.
To be clear, I am not a Windows fanboy by any means, and I assure you that there are a lot of things about WP8 that annoy me, but MS has also done some really good things with it. I will try to present both sides equally so that anyone who has been curious about the phones without wanting to drop a few hundred bucks to find out can get a good idea about what MS has to offer.
This review is based on the HTC 8x since it's the WP8 that I have been using.
HTC 8x important specs: 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon, 1 GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 4.3 inch display, 1800 mAh battery, LTE enabled, 8MP camera with LED flash
The Good
Battery Life - This particular WP8 has excellent battery life. It is not uncommon for people to have to charge their smart phone every single night. I regularly get 2 days out of the HTC 8x. For a comparison, I used an Android phone (LG Optimus 3D) for over a year. This LG phone has slightly less powerful specs compared to the HTC 8x and after a full day of use I would be sitting at around 20-30% battery. With the 8x I am currently sitting at 45% battery and my phone has been off charge for 28 hours. During that 28 hour span I watched about 20 minutes of Youtube videos, made 3-4 phone calls, sent and received about 20 texts, browsed the web a bit, and checked my email a dozen times. Wi-fi and GPS are both on.
The feel of the OS itself - All I can tell you is that this phone is buttery smooth. Everything is very fluid feeling. Even more so than my iPad which I would give an edge to over my Android tablet or phone. There is never any slowdown or choppiness on WP8. The style of WP8 is up for debate. I know people that hate the metro look, and others who adore it. It really comes down to personal preference. I don't like or dislike the look, myself. It's cleaner and more sleek than Android or ios, but you can't really add any personality to it. I should also mention that it is the optimization of the OS that helps make the battery life so good. The battery itself is standard size (1800 mAh), but the OS is designed to make it last.
The browser - Obviously WP8 comes with IE as it's default browser. Before you jump on me, and bash IE right away, I will admit that for PC IE isn't my favourite browser. I use Chrome religiously. From a mobile standpoint, though, IE is the fastest browser I have ever used. This thing is just really really quick. I performed a real world test against an iPhone 5 and my 8x won easily. My friend owns the iPhone 5 and we are both on the same service provider. Both phones use LTE. We stood beside eachother and typed a search into Google on each of our browsers. We hit enter at the same time and the 8x loaded much faster. We then clicked on the first link that came up for our search and again the 8x was faster. I have also used every Android browser known to man, and while many of them are very feature rich, they tend to feel sluggish compared to IE on WP8. My only complaint about this browser is that it doesn't have a quick-dial style homepage, but that is a very minor inconvenience. The look and feel of the browser is also very clean and reading forums is a breeze on it. Somehow mobile IE gets the font size just right on any website I visit so I don't have to zoom in or out constantly like I did on my last phone.
Sound quality - This is specific to the hardware of the HTC 8x, not WP8 in general obviously. From what I have experienced this phone has superb sound both for in-call and for media. It comes with Beats Audio, but as an added bonus the 8x packs 2 amplifiers into it's headphone jack giving you much louder audio through the same set of headphones on a different device. I actually can't put the volume up past 25 out of 30 without hurting myself. On any other device I have used, including my iPod, I can hit max volume and keep listening. Unfortunately, as I will explain in the "bad" section of my review, actually setting up your music library on WP8 is a bit of a nightmare.
MS Office - Yes, there are office alternatives on Android and ios, but this is the best mobile office software I have used, and I have tried almost all of them at some point or another. Creating or editing Word or Excel documents is a breeze on WP8. The only issue is that with excel, you can't edit documents that have complex forumlas in them, but this is the same as any of the alternatives that you will find on Android. WP8 at least keeps the formatting much cleaner.
The Bad
Xbox Music - This is the default software for playing, streaming, and purchasing music on WP8. It is MS's replacement for Zune, and it's actually a giant step backwards. While the store itself is set up beautifully, and the selection is phenomenal, it's just really really irritating to use. You cannot actually edit playlists from within the phone itself. You need to connect it to a PC to do this. There is no equalizer. There are severe DRM issues. After I upgraded from my free trial and signed up for an Xbox music subscription none of the songs I downloaded during the trial would play anymore. I had to re-download them all. Are you fucking kidding me? $2 Android music apps have more feature rich music players than this. It's actually quite embarrassing for MS that this is the best they could do. Sadly, they have not released an update to remedy any of these issues.
Features of the OS -
1) The OS, while incredibly smooth as I mentioned earlier, lacks some basic features that I expect from any mobile device. You cannot create folders. I like creating folders to organize similiar apps. On my Android I had a folder for navigation and map apps, a folder for media apps, a folder for games, etc. On WP8 I can simply keep all of the homescreen tiles for similiar apps together, but if you have a ton of apps then you can get a really cluttered home screen.
2) You can set your own ringtone to anything you want, but you can't change your notification ringtone to anything other than what comes pre-loaded on the phone.....I'm dead serious.
3) You can't individually adjust the volume for media, ringtone, and notifications. WP8 has a universal volume control. Seems like a huge oversight to me.
Lack of apps - I will list this as a negative, although I admittedly considered not listing it as one because I really haven't found it to be much of a hinderence at all, but I know that for some people it could be a deal breaker. There are about 7x the amount of apps for ios and Android compared to WP8. If you need apps for absolutely every little thing, and a selection of 200 apps that all do the exact same thing then WP8 is not for you. However, I have not really found any important apps missing from WP8. I can use Facebook, Twitter, GPS voice navigation, Youtube, ESPN, Reddit, Fitness apps, etc. The selection is not as huge, but MS has fairly solid quality control. Instead of finding 700 radio apps you will only find maybe 5 but they are all good.
The Average (Features that I find to be on par with what you would expect from any high end smart phone)
Camera - The camera on the 8x is exactly what you would expect from a top of the line phone. Not much else to say. Although, the Nokia Lumia 920 which is the flagship WP8, apparently has a phenomenal camera that destroys any other smartphone camera. I cannot comment on it, though, as I have only read about it and not tested it.
Screen - The screen on my 8x is actually better than what I've experienced with most android devices, but maybe not as good as what you get on an iPhone 5 or iPad. The 8x screen is easier to see than the average smartphone screen in sunlight, though. I don't have the exact specifications of the screen memorized, but if you can tell the difference between a 4.3 inch screen with 320ppi or 340ppi then you're a better man than I.
Look and feel - WP8 devices look and feel just like any other high end device. The HTC 8x feels like what you would expect from a high end HTC. The Samsung Ative WP8 looks and feels exactly like an S3, and the Nokia Lumia 920 looks like the WP7 Nokia phones.
And there you have it. To me, there is a lot to like about WP8, and also some shortcomings. I think with future updates to fix their music software and basic phone features like volume control WP8 could be a fantastic option for smart phone enthusiasts down the road. For now, if you care about battery life and speed I would recommend it. If you are a freak for options, and customization it's not for you, and if you really need a great music player on your phone then avoid WP8 at all costs unless you value audio quality over ease of use.
Note: I left games out of my review because I don't play games on my phone. I have a 3DS for mobile gaming like any real man should! Although I guess I should mention that you can link your XBL account to your WP8 and achievments you unlock in XBL games for WP8 add to your gamerscore. That's kind of a cool feature for anyone that actually does game on their phone.
Feel free to ask any questions about WP8 and I can try to answer them to the best of my ability. Also feel free to share any tips or tricks you've learned about WP8 if you have one!
