One of the most frequent questions that is been asked from the prominent analysts by the users is what is the best smartphone out there? This is a question that is easily elaborated than answered. Smartphones are one of the most diverse electronic gadgets available to the world. They come in different shapes and sizes physically, they come in different configurations and performance options internally and they come in different operating systems and applications at the user level. Hence pointing at a single smartphone and spelling it out as the best smartphone is not possible. Further, the high rate of innovation adds to this and doesn’t let a single smartphone to keep the crown more than three months. Today we thought of comparing two smartphones from the same vendor having the same operating system, but with different outlooks and configurations. HTC revealed their Windows Phone 8 flagship products sometime back which were actually poorly named as HTC Windows Phone 8X and HTC Windows Phone 8S. We will try to fathom whether HTC has done a good job in engineering a smartphone that can fight with the competition. Right now, Windows Phone 8 is a niche market with less number of products. Samsung beat everyone to revealing the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone and subsequently Nokia has also revealed their Windows Phone 8 edition. Now that HTC also has done that, we can actually expect a good competition from these three manufacturers. Let us dive in to these two handsets and find out what we are dealing with.
HTC Windows Phone 8X Review
HTC has injected a vivid blue and violet color to this attractive smartphone. It also comes in Graphite Black, Flame Red and Limelight Yellow. The handset is somewhat in to the thick side of the spectrum although HTC has disguised it with the tapered edges which makes others perceive it as rather a thin smartphone. It comes with a unibody chassis which we can complement due to the aesthetically appealing design. It is powered by 1.5GHz Dual Core Krait processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM. The handset is powered by Windows Phone 8 as indicated by the name. However, Windows Phone 8X didn’t have a completed build of the operating system just yet, so we won’t be able to talk about the aspects of the OS right now. What we can guess is that the handset would have acceptable performance matrices with the high end processor it has.
One of the things we didn’t like about HTC Windows Phone 8X is its stagnating 16GB of internal storage without the option to expand it using SD card. This may well be a deal breaker for some of you out there. However, the handset comes with Beats Audio Sound Enhancement and so a premium audio quality is to be expected. It has 4.3 inch S LCD2 capacitive touchscreen display featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 342ppi. It is moderately weighed at 130g with evenly distributed weight, which feels good in your hands. Unfortunately, Window Phone 8X doesn’t feature 4G LTE connectivity which might be an issue when competing with rivals. Compensating that, HTC has offered NFC connectivity along with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n for continuous connectivity alongside 3G HSDPA connectivity. This smartphone has 8MP camera at the back with autofocus and LED flash with the ability to capture 1080p HD videos. The front camera is 2.1MP which is impressive and HTC guarantees a wide angle view with 1080p HD video recording from the front camera, as well. The battery size is 1800mAh with which we expect to have a talk time around 6 to 8 hours.
HTC Windows Phone 8S Review
HTC Windows Phone 8S is the younger brother of Windows Phone 8X. Hence it is basically the budget version of Windows Phone 8X like Xperia V or HTC One S. At a glance, it follows the design of the Xperia line with a separate chunk at the bottom of the device. The budget smartphone comes in two tone color combinations you can choose from; California Blue and Graphite Black with Flame Red and Limelight Yellow. It doesn’t have a unibody chassis, but you don’t have access to your battery either. HTC has made this smartphone rather light at a weight of 113g and included a 4 inch S LCD capacitive touchscreen that features a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels at a pixel density of 233ppi. The corning gorilla glass reinforcement ensures a scratch resistant surface.
HTC Windows Phone 8S is powered by 1GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 chipset and 512MB of RAM. The smartphone runs on Window Phone 8 but we can’t comment on the performance yet since the build included wasn’t finalized at the moment. However, we assume it would run seamlessly with the available configuration of this device. The internal storage is at 4G with the option to expand using microSD card up to 32GB unlike the HTC 8X. The optics rest at a 5MP camera with a single LED flash that can capture 720p HD videos at 30 frames per second. There is also a secondary camera in the front for video calls. Like its bigger brother, HTC 8S doesn’t feature 4G LTE connectivity and 3G HSDPA connectivity is the only available option with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n for continuous connectivity. Bluetooth is also available although there is no indication on NFC. The battery is said to be at 1700mAh and we assume it would score a talk time of 6 to 8 hours.
A Brief Comparison between HTC Windows Phone 8X and HTC Windows Phone 8S
• HTC Windows Phone 8X is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM while HTC Windows Phone 8S is powered by 1GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 512MB of RAM.
• HTC Windows Phone 8X has 4.3 inch S LCD 2 capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 342ppi while HTC Windows Phone 8S has 4.0 inch S LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels at a pixel density of 233ppi.
• HTC Windows Phone 8X has 8MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 fps while HTC Windows Phone 8S has 5MP camera that can capture 720p HD videos at 30 fps.
• HTC Windows Phone 8X has 16GB of internal storage without the option to expand using microSD card while HTC Windows Phone 8S has 4GB of internal storage with the option to expand using microSD card.
• HTC Windows Phone 8X is bigger, thinner yet heftier (132.4 x 66.2mm / 10.1mm / 130g) than HTC Windows Phone 8S (120.5 x 63mm / 10.3mm / 113g).
• HTC Windows Phone 8X has 1800mAh battery while HTC Windows Phone 8S has 1700mAh battery.
Conclusion
This is a conclusion that is rather obvious. Both smartphones were revealed at the same time and one is obviously the flagship product while the other is the budget line. There are two questions in line here. Would the budget phone perform acceptably and will the difference between the prices is worth the sacrifice of the better counterpart. Unfortunately we are not at liberty to discuss any of these questions right now because we don’t have information about the performance nor do we have information about the prices. In terms of performance, we can clearly see that HTC Windows Phone 8X will be faster, however, we cannot guarantee a seamless performance from the budget version unless we run it through our benchmarks. So till we get our hands on and till HTC announces the prices of these handsets, let us wait patiently and afterwards, we can make the purchase decision.