Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia has lashed out at HTC over the 8X and 8S, dismissing the new “signature” Windows Phone 8 handsets as rebrands that are lacking in innovation. “Instead of changing a product name, we’re changing the game with benefits like PureView, nav & wireless charging” Nokia executive vice president of sales and marketing Chris Weber tweeted shortly after HTC revealed its new line-up. “It takes more than matching color to match the innovation of the Lumia 920.”

The tension has seemingly been prompted by HTC’s deal with Microsoft to brand the 8X and 8S as the “signature Windows Phones.” Microsoft will use HTC’s handsets for its promotional material and advertising around Windows Phone 8, and CEO Steve Ballmer appeared on-stage at today’s event to wax lyrical about how the smartphones embodied the updated platform.

That’s a position many expected Nokia to automatically assume at Microsoft’s right hand, given the Finnish company has entirely committed to Windows Phone and is even paid by the software firm to subsidize development and marketing.

Although HTC has undoubtedly put plenty of effort into the slick designs of the 8X and 8S, the software experience is more off-the-shelf. The company confirmed to us that, bar a homescreen clock Live Tile, there’ll be none of the custom apps or HTC Hub content found on the original HTC Windows Phone 7 models. Nokia, in contrast, has a suite of exclusive apps, including Nokia Music and Nokia Transport.

Those questions are apparently enough to leave Nokia confident that its phones remain ahead of the game. “Happy to add a new Signature to the Windows Phone ecosystem” Weber suggested, “behind the Lumia 920.”

Nokia slaps HTC with Windows Phone 8 innovation snub is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HTC has given a behind-the-scenes look at the design process of the new Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S smartphones, detailing just how it came up with the pillowy slabs of unibody polycarbonate. According to HTC, the inspiration wasn’t just Nokia’s Lumias – despite the obvious resemblance – but a physical embodiment of the Live Tiles of the Windows Phone homescreen.

“HTC designed the Windows Phone 8X and 8S to blend the virtual and the physical utilizing a three dimensional, unibody-style based on the Windows Phone Live Tiles” the company said today. “These smartphones are perfectly sculpted with a dramatic taper making them feel thin in your hand.”

Inside, HTC’s engineers stacked up the various circuit boards and components in a multi-layered pyramid. It means there’s no camera bump around the lens on the back, for a start, while the Gorilla glass curves neatly into the plastic casing.

Iconic design behind the Windows Phone 8X and 8S by HTC:

We’ve got more on both phones in our 8X hands-on and our 8S hands-on, and buyers will be able to check the two handsets out for themselves when they hit shelves across the US, Europe and Asia in November.

HTC 8X and 8S hands-on:

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HTC details Windows Phone 8X and 8S design journey is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We just had a chance to see and handle the colorful Windows Phone 8X by HTC, but where will we find it in the US? On stage, the company told us that the new device will be heading to three major carriers: AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. All three operators should be pushing the device out sometime in November, though we’re still waiting to hear specifics on pricing — and we also haven’t been told details on the availability of the lower-end Windows Phone 8S.

Note: We’re hearing whispers that the 8X will be $199 on AT&T and T-Mobile, but both carriers have responded to our request for more information, stating that no pricing has been released yet. The press releases can be found below.

Check out our liveblog coverage of HTC’s Windows Phone 8 launch event!

Continue reading Windows Phone 8X coming to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in November

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Windows Phone 8X coming to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in November originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s easy to make a flagship phone: simply throw the works at your drawing board. Harder, though, is crafting a midrange phone on a relative budget, and that’s where the Windows Phone 8S by HTC comes in. The second device in the company’s new line-up, the Microsoft-powered 8S is the culmination of some tough decisions on HTC’s part, around whether the target audience will appreciate Beats Audio or photography more. Read on for our first impressions.

In some ways, the 8S is arguably a more impressive design than the larger 8X. HTC’s choice of color schemes – black/white, grey/yellow, red/orange, and blue/purple – are eye-catching and, with the matte-finish to the plastic, draw your fingers in to touch them. The grey/yellow has something distinctively sneaker-like about its vivid yellow and putty grey; HTC says it’s counting on the Beats Audio cachet to win appeal in the youth market, but it’s the hues themselves that are most attractive.

While the exterior may be distinctive, what’s inside is less unusual. Altogether more pedestrian than the 8X, the 8S pairs its 4-inch WVGA display with a 1GHz dualcore Snapdragon S4 chipset and 512MB of RAM; it also has just 4GB of internal storage, but HTC has sensibly thrown in a microSD card slot. Pull off the brightly colored end-cap – which, as in HTC devices of old, doubles as the antenna – and there’s the SIM and memory card slots.

Windows Phone 8S by HTC hands-on:

Unfortunately there are compromises to be made elsewhere. The rear camera runs to 5-megapixels, an understandable figure given the positioning of the phone, but despite Microsoft’s emphasis on Skype integration in Windows Phone 8, HTC hasn’t equipped the 8S with a front-facing camera. The company tells us that it doesn’t expect video calling to be a particularly popular activity among the target audience.

That audience will get Beats Audio but not to the same extent as on the 8X. No twin amp magic here, individually driving speaker and headphone socket, with instead just the DSP we’ve seen on previous HTC phones that’s specially tuned to suit Beats headphones. Since Microsoft is playing it coy with Windows Phone 8, pre-official launch, we weren’t able to dig through the 8S to see exactly how well it performs, something which will have to wait until review units drop.

A price tag expected to come in at around the HTC One V point and the option of LTE in North America – if not Europe, at least according to the current plans – could still see the Windows Phone 8S by HTC carve out a niche for itself. Its certainly already found some favor among carriers: HTC tells us that over 100 operators in 37 countries have picked the 8S up. It will stand out on shelves, certainly, but Microsoft will need to put all its heft behind Windows Phone 8 if HTC’s midranger is to succeed.

Windows Phone 8S by HTC Hands-on is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Cumbersome name; classy hardware. The Windows Phone 8X by HTC owes its awkward nomenclature to a deal that might prove HTC’s salvation and Nokia’s frustration: the company has inked an agreement with Microsoft to make the 8X the “signature handset” of Windows Phone 8, after apparently convincing the software firm that the new flagship suitably “embodied” the OS’ spirit. We caught up with HTC to spend some time with the 8X and to see if we’d end up similarly charmed.

HTC is particularly proud of the design language of its new Windows Phone 8 line-up, based – so the company’s designers say – on the squared-off Live Tiles of the OS’ homescreen, only plumped up and crafted in polycarbonate. Whether or not that convinces you is beside the point; in the hand, the 8X is a solid and tactile shape, legions apart from the bland and bloated lumps that were HTC’s first Windows Phone 7 devices.

The matte-finish plastic – which will be available in blue, black, yellow, and red, though the red won’t be making it to the EMEA – is easily gripped and the curved edges are comfortable to hold. It doesn’t make for a bulky phone, either, though the 8X is arguably reminiscent of Nokia’s own polycarbonate smartphone range, perhaps more in the way the Gorilla glass smoothly meets the bezel.

Whatever the inspiration, it’s a solid and nicely weighted phone. HTC – or more accurately Microsoft – isn’t allowing anybody to dig any further than the Windows Phone 8 homescreen, but that’s enough to give a glowing impression of the 4.3-inch Super LCD II display. At 720p HD resolution it’s crisp, and the viewing angles are great, aided not least by the optical lamination construction of the display stack itself.

Windows Phone 8X by HTC hands-on:

Colors are vivid and blacks (which make up so much of Windows Phone’s UI color scheme) are suitably inky. A bright lockscreen image was the closest we could get to a decent test, which the 8X handled with aplomb. HTC will theme the UI colors according to the handset’s own hue, though that will be user-adjustable if you’d rather have contrast.

HTC’s specifications certainly don’t single the 8X out as the weak cousin of an Android device. Hardware we’re familiar with from the One X make an appearance in a new Windows Phone guise, with NFC, LTE (for North American models, at least; Europe will have to make do with HSPA+/DC-HSDPA for the moment), a 1.5GHz dualcore Snapdragon S4 chipset, and 1GB of RAM. The decision to bypass expandable storage and instead settle on 16GB of fixed internal memory is unpleasantly reminiscent of Microsoft’s initial limitations on Windows Phone, however, and while we understand HTC was loathe to mar the 8X’s sleek lines, it’s hardly a capacious phone for the sort of power user it’s targeted at.

Happily the camera promises to redeem the 8X somewhat, taking a step ahead of what the One X already offers. The main, 8-megapixel backside-illuminated shooter is paired with an f/2.0 lens and HTC’s own Image Chip processing, while the front camera is an impressively pixel-packing 2.1-megapixel BSI CMOS which can also shoot 1080p Full HD video. HTC is particularly proud of its front lens, too, an 88-degree wide-angle example that can fit four people into a vanity shot.

That, along with the Beats Audio tuning that throws not one but two amplifiers at the 8X – one for the boosted headphone jack, the other for the integrated speaker – will have to wait to prove its worth until review samples arrive. If anything, though, HTC has convincingly done its part: delivered an admirable house for Windows Phone 8 to live in. Whether the smartphone – and its 8S sibling – sinks or swims in the marketplace depends on just how good Microsoft’s platform proves to be, and how much heft the software giant puts behind its marketing. At least as the “signature handset” of Windows Phone, the 8X promises to reap the main rewards of the hype machine.

Windows Phone 8X by HTC Hands-on is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.