Sure, it wasn’t quite as amazing as the Nokia event, but pretty good none the less.
Yesterday afternoon HTC announced their new Windows Phone devices. We initially thought there was going to be three devices, but they brought out two. The Window Phone 8X and the 8S. They have similar specs to their rivals and also look similar. Nokia have already commented on their use of colour and how similar this is to the Lumia handsets.
What HTC have done here is change. They are in a bit of a predicament at the moment. Their “One” range hasn’t been quite as successful as they’d hoped and churning out more Android devices would just damage their brand and reputation. 2011 showed us that having a lot of different devices with slightly different specs is not such a good thing.
HTC have always been involved with Microsoft and their Mobile OS. They have been making Windows Mobile and Windows Phone devices for many years, but Windows Phone 7 for them fell at a bad time. The Android tidal wave picked HTC up and swept them away, and the few WP7 devices were really just an afterthought (in my opinion). But now Android has moved on and Samsung are stomping over all and sundry, HTC have seen a chance to differentiate themselves from the crowd.
As I mentioned earlier, they obviously had one target in mind with their designs for the 8X and 8S – Nokia. The Lumia range has been fairly successful in taking Windows Phone to the masses, recently I have seen an old man using a Lumia 800 and a builder using a Samsung Omnia 7. The other question with Android is, “What is left for any of the OEM’s to do?”
HTC have quite a way to go though, Nokia will no doubt be spending millions again on getting it’s new devices into the public eye and they keep mentioning lots of Lumia specific apps. It almost feels like the once mighty HTC are the underdog in this battle. You know what they say about the underdog.
Don’t get me wrong, the 8X is a gorgeous looking device and I can’t wait to get my hands on one. I feel that if they had also announced the rumoured HTC Zenith (which was rumoured to have a quad core Qualcomm S4 CPU), there wouldn’t be any question in anyones mind which phone to get. I guess either they, Microsoft or Windows Phone just aren’t ready for the quad core CPUs. I hope it does exist and I hope it comes soon, for Windows Phones sake.
Here are the press shots from the HTC website to remind you of how nice the new devices look.
What is slightly annoying about the last three Windows Phone announcements is that we’ve barely seen anything of the new OS. Each OEM shows us their homescreens and then their own apps, then it ends. I look forward to the next big Microsoft event, where we will hopefully see more of the OS.
So what will I be buying in a few months time? I really don’t know. The slightly lower specs of the HTC devices is worrying. I am hoping that HTC price the 8X and 8S lower than the Lumias. Only time will tell.
So what did you think of yesterdays announcement? Are you concerned about the slightly lower specs? Let us know below.
Seeing the 8X looked like going backwards, after the Titan II with much higher specs. IMHO HTC should have branded them 8S and 8V, keeping the 8X name for the real flagship featuring a larger screen, at least 32GB of storage, and a higher specs camera (Megapixels are not everything of course, but after the 16Mpx of the Titan II this can’t compare even if it has the Image Sense chip).
Unfortunately a source of mine told me the probable Italian prices for the unlocked versions of these phones: €299 for the 8S and €549 for the 8X. While the first can be fine, the second is way too expensive IMHO.
Oh yes the Titan II shame it never reached us here in the UK. It does seem odd they didn’t take that camera and work on it for the new devices.