Gadgetory

a year and a half ago I switched to Windows Phone with the HTC 8x for a month to see if the platform could woo me away from iOS for blog videos and a month later the answer was a definite no but Windows Phone has had a lot of time to mature so when HTC reached out about the One m8 for Windows running the latest 8.1 version featuring Cortana voice control I jumped at the opportunity to review it coolermaster v-series semi modular power supplies feature 80 plus gold efficiency and their gold guarantee five-year warranty click now to learn more we'll kick things off positively hardware-wise HTC didn't change much but i don't really feel like they had to I love this phone it's the one on eight man it's got a fast CPU ample RAM enough storage on board with microSD expansion if you need more front facing beam sound speakers their ultra pixel camera with a two-tone flash that is designed to perform best in low-light scenarios and finally that wonderful glass and aluminum 1m Series build quality that is second to none anyway if you want to know more about the hardware you should check out our original One m8 review where I basically say it's awesome this video is more about the software after that Windows Phone has some advantages it runs extraordinarily well on relatively low end hardware mind you so does Android these days it's a tiled display and navigation animations are eye-catching and beautiful mind you what isn't these days and finally it works really well with Windows services like Office Mobile onedrive and Skype but what doesn't these days ok so both weren't really advantages at all then were they this is going to be a rough video setup was easy I imported my accounts and settings from my old 8x in just a couple minutes also Google account 2-step validation is super easy to deal with now and doesn't require app specific passwords that's good but once I landed on the desktop with its live tiles shoot I don't really know where to begin just like last time around I started by trying to find equivalents for the essential apps that I use every day and it's a real chore the first party Facebook and Twitter apps are pretty good Instagram has a very functional beta speedtest.net Flixter and whatsapp all worked fine Plex is available but I'm not paying five dollars for it again so I can't comment on how good that one is and Dropbox and so no services are enabled through third-party apps that have some but not all of the functionality and ease of use of the official ones on other platforms which leads us to the stuff that's missing Google stuff is a nightmare so kiss goodbye stuff like the YouTube studio creator app and hangouts and while Google Play Music has a third-party app this very amusing review the developer left on his own app really highlights the issues with relying on these when the api's can change overnight just like that and then in no particular order here's some other stuff that I use every day without suitable replacements harmony remote control drop cam replacement keyboards such as Swift key I mean even Apple is going to start allowing third-party keyboards in iOS 8 come on Microsoft speaking of which scan apps the only things labeled Swift key in the Windows Phone store are straight-up scams one of which has been there for over a month without being cleaned up for shame Microsoft which I guess leads to a discussion about the stock keyboard it's text prediction is accurate but slow I felt like oftentimes it was missing keystrokes and the thing is so huge that a I simply can't type on it without accidentally mashing B every time I go for the spacebar and be with autocorrect autofill predictions the navigation bar and some obnoxiously huge UI elements in some places it's amazing how little of the screen you actually get to you sometimes I guess it's got swipes tile typing now but I don't care because I don't really use that it needs other things to improve first which leads to yet another complaint who is this UI made for at least TouchWiz knows it's for people whose eyesight is starting to go and who aren't that familiar with phones with nice you know loud sound effects when you mash on the gigantic buttons Windows Phone on the other hand doesn't really give you any indication whether a button press worked other than you know after a little bit doing the thing and on top of that a single screen can have text as wide as your ace in headings and then like super tiny micro tax that you have to squint out unless you have perfect vision and on top of that I just plain don't find it very intuitive to use drag down to see your notifications okay with you so far click an email alright brings up an email with you so far I'm looking at the email okay now I'm done now what maybe if I press back I'll land in the Inbox no no that just takes me away okay well is there maybe another button in case I want to look at other emails when I'm done with this one email that was in my notifications or do I actually have to go all the way back to the desktop and open the email client from there wow that's slow and lots of things are slow like this how about a quick-draw speed competition to dial someone's phone number no t9 dialing is a big heaping wheelbarrow full of suck on top of all the other things that are slow above this process some stuff is okay though quick toggles are reconfigurable in the main stuff including portable hotspot sharing is here also I was corrected when I said on our podcast that folder support on the desktop is still missing you can create folders of apps making organization quite a bit easier now so that's good changing ringtones lets you change without previewing at full volume which is nice good for parents with newborns and I love the control that you have over snoozing and dismissing notifications every oh s needs this let me control how long its news is for and there's more positive stuff to Cortana is actually quick to use and seems to learn a little bit after the first time for a given task like call Yvonne it doesn't force me to navigate unnecessarily through menus to confirm things so for things like basic voice dialing and sending quick SMS messages it's really fast but I also think it's been oversold a little bit while actual speech recognition from you was great there's still no support for basic system setting stuff like volume control and screen brightness and I found it very flow breaking to have to press the voice button in between interactions you know like show me where there's a sushi restaurant okay here's something nearby you can't just keep talking you have to press the button again it is very promising for the future though and I'm excited to see where Microsoft is taking this one because it's pretty darn mature for a first attempt okay so it's conclusion and more thoughts time I think the bottom line from you here is that while in my mind HTC did a great job of delivering the best enthusiasts grade Windows Phone 8.1 experience they could you know their social media feed blinkfeed works as a live tile the duo camera we're depth feature and quick video and photo highlight reel features are enabled through apps as well and they did a great job but even if their entire company was staffed by like cowboy astronaut millionaires there was nothing they could do to make the Windows Phone ecosystem suitable for enthusiasts high-end use nothing basic functionality call people take pictures and video chat on skype all this stuff works so I guess I could recommend it for my mom but go any further than that and I don't understand why anyone would want it for intermediate users like my sister she's going to be baffled by the need to use third-party applications some of which cost money for stuff like YouTube and then as we get into the higher end enthusiasts who are able to jump through those technical hoops the ones that are likely to be also jumping on the trends of like wearables and connected devices and stuff and we got another deal-breaker the lack of third-party developer support becomes a complete no-go for Windows and it happens over and over the unofficial pebble app does some cool stuff actually but doesn't notify of calls and texts apparently due to Microsoft policies deal-breaker the unofficial drop can app supports new images every two-and-a-half seconds with no live video audio or historical video scrubbing deal-breaker and it's just on and on like that battery life was a very positive point with the phone often lasting me two full days or more but I think a big part of this is how inefficient to use it was and therefore how little time I actually spent using it even stupid stuff like trying to find a draft email that I started creating on the desktop in the stock email client which is otherwise one of the better the windows phone was just such a waste of time that I would just walk to my computer if it was nearby so all in all this phone baffles me a little bit it's a phone for no-one I understand that some people have a thing for supporting the market underdog and are willing to work around numerous and communities to do it or have specific complaints about Google and Apple that would cause them to want to avoid using the services of both of those companies and for you there's high end Windows phones like the One m8 for Windows for everyone else there's stuff out there that's just plain more functional and easier to use and in the case of the One m8 also exactly the same price so the conclusion pretty much writes itself here guys thanks for watching like the video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment letting me know if you have some thoughts on the whole Windows Phone versus other platforms thing I would love to hear from you in the video description you'll find a support us link where you can give us a monthly contribution buy a cool t-shirt like this one that also helps support us or change your amazon bookmark to want to Thor 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