HTC 8S - Review

The first device to sport Microsoft's shiny new Windows Phone 8, but how does it fare with its mid-range specs?

It has not been that long since HTC released their new mid-range windows phone called 8S, so it has a lot of competition these days, especially in the face of Nokia's Lumia series. But for a cheap device, this one is not so bad.

The design is simplistic, yet surprising. Smartphones using the Windows Phone OS usually come in a single-coloured casing, and while most of the HTC 8S is black, it has a blue-coloured stripe at the bottom, which makes it very easy to tell apart from other devices in the same category.

The buttons are uniform, like in most windows phones. The casing is built up from a sort of rubbery polycarbonate and the entire thing weighs only about 113 grams, so it feels very light in your hand.

Do not expect much from the screen. It is small, just 4 inches, but it is good enough for the operating system that this device uses, since Windows Phone 8 looks fine even on small screens. Its low resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, coming at around 233 ppi is also fine, but far from impressive.

HTC have chosen to power this mid-range handset with a dual-core 1 GHz processor and just 512 megabytes of RAM, but it is satisfactory for a cheap smartphone such as this one, and more than enough to handle the operating system without any glitches or lag.

The 8S, like most HTC smartphones, also has the iconic Beats Audio, so you will, at least, have a nice quality bass for your songs. The battery might look weak at just 1700 mAh, but it is more than enough for the weak hardware it has to power.

It is a standard practice to put 5 MP cameras in mid-range phones nowadays. Still, for a camera with such a small sensor, this one takes surprisingly good photos. You will not find many options to tinker with, though, and there are no scene modes. Note, also, that the HTC 8S lacks a frontal camera for video-calls.

If you are looking to try out Windows Phone 8 for a low price, and prefer other brands to Nokia, then the HTC 8S is definitely a viable choice, despite its low hardware specifications.

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Huawei and Windows Phone

Why did they make this choice?

After Microsoft acquired Nokia’s entire handset business, it seemed that third-party developers and manufacturers would flee the Windows Phone market. One company, however, has decided not to back away and make use of this small market.

Huawei have become one of the top OEMs on the mobile market and they will not abandon Windows Phone 8 anytime soon. The company still remains one of Microsoft’s strategic partners and has decided not to go with only free-to-use platforms like Google’s Android or the new Firefox OS. But what do they hope to gain with something that takes up such a small percentage of the large mobile market? Let’s take a closer look at this operating system and find out.

Although iOS and Android fans will be reluctant to admit this, Windows Phone 8 has quite an innovative interface. Sure the OS might not be as customizable as Android, but it is also less restrictive than iOS in some aspects, but is also basically much more attractive and futuristic than both. People these days choose which smartphone to buy, according to both its physical design and according to the design of its OS and Windows Phone definitely has an advantage here.

Huawei - Factory Unlock Code - Any Network

As for the availability of apps in Windows Market Place, the numbers are growing more and more, so you have an alternative to almost everything in Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store. Basically, this operating system gives an opportunity for a better market for app developers and is bound to attract more people to Windows phones.

So, the answer to the question why Huawei have decided to stay in the Windows Phone business is obvious – this OS is bound to develop and become very desirable in the future and it is an opportunity that cannot be ignored.

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