Gadgetory

it's new it's soft and it's blue it's the first Windows Phone to feature boomsound from HTC and it's sprints first Windows Phone in over two years but is it ready for primetime let's find out I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is our video review of the HTC 8x t the only Windows Phone sprint had ever carried until recently was the arrive a side sliding QWERTY smartphone also from HTC that made up the entirety of Sprint's original Windows Phone 7 rollout back in March of 2011 the carrier has led its Microsoft Collection languish in the intervening years so the HTC 8x T with its trimmer more modern build has got to be a sight for sore eyes if you're on America's third largest network looking for a Windows Phone so let's see how it holds up in the usual four categories hardware software camera performance and a few test notes one of the most popular viewer comments on our 8x T versus one comparison video was the observation that the 8x T should have been called the 8 s T due to its decidedly more mid-range specs it definitely resembles HTC's earlier 8's more than the 8 X with an off-color stripe highlighting the bottom of the device and a 4.3 inch LCD screen that's not gonna turn any heads with its WVGA resolution 216 pixels per inch isn't bad necessarily especially not on Windows Phone but it definitely isn't crisp enough to hold up next to the higher resolution screens of the 8x or Lumia 1020 and its colors really wash out at certain angles it's a pretty unremarkable panel which is a shame because the device surrounding it feels wonderful in the hand the soft touch paint job comes in only one available color on Sprint California blue and it looks terrific the curved back nests nicely in your palm the phone's nine point nine millimeter thickness is a perfect match for its 140 gram mass it's just beautiful the HTC branding is minimal and perfect please set off by the phone's design the buttons are where we expect them to be and the camera bezel the little alien looking bears an attractive steel finish the phone really is stunning and it's easy to see why HTC has won its share of design awards down in engineering things are a little more commonplace powering everything is a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 running at 1.4 gigahertz and helped along by a gig of ram and a paltry eight gigs of storage only 5.5 of which are available to the user on first boot thankfully there's microSD expansion here for media but the same can't be said for the 1800 milliamp hour lipo battery which is embedded otherwise it's a pretty tame cocktail of Bluetooth 4.0 Wi-Fi a/b/g/n NFC and radios for Sprint's 3G CDMA and 4G LTE there's nothing terribly special about this phones spec load here's where we normally follow that up by reminding you that Windows Phone is a very consistent and responsive platform no matter what specs it's running on well that is indeed normally true but not sadly on the 8xt frankly this phone has some significant performance issues to begin with doing anything while there's a music streaming app playing in the background is a virtual guarantee of lag and stutter try streaming anything from Pandora or Spotify over cellular even over LTE and then spend a few minutes and Twitter more the People Hub anywhere not only will the audio start breaking up with pops and clicks as though it's an old AM radio but the phone's UI slows to a crawl too with animations grinding to a skittering halt and key press is not always logging correctly it seems to happen irrespective of what media app you're using whether you're on headphones or speakers and weather beats is enabled or not sometimes it happens when you're not even playing music at all the phone will just bog down for no apparent reason only to then go on behaving normally for a few minutes before doing it again well that's the most serious issue it's sadly not the only one we've also run into problems on phone calls we'll save you the jump down to test notes and just tell you hear that phone call performance itself is only so-so to begin with on both sides callers said we sounded just okay and to us people came through plenty loud but muffled but that's not the issue the problem is that the 8xt periodically turns the screen on while you're talking for no reason causing your cheek to trigger the speakerphone or conference call toggles or even hit the end call key if these sound like the kind of issue is found on a defective phone we thought so too so we reached out to HTC for a replacement demo unit and to their credit the company immediately sent one over but the new phone bears the same exact set of problems it seems pretty clear the 8x tease software which is the production release packing gtr2 is pretty seriously undercooked this phone is desperately in need of an update to correct these issues because as of now it's easily the least enjoyable Windows Phone 8 experience we've ever had it's possible some of those bugs are coming from HTC's heavier than usual customization of Windows Phone which in some areas is actually quite welcome the camera is a big one the 8 xt packs a fairly typical 8 megapixel BSI sensor around back but it's the software that makes it stand out from other Windows Phone shooters the viewfinder is essentially a Windows if ocation of HTC's awesome viewfinder from the one with many customization options filters and special shooting modes like HDR along with HTC's time saving persistent double shutter keys for Stills and video that quick draw video trigger helped us capture this rapidly passing train is something we wouldn't have been quick enough to snag had we been using the standard Windows Phone viewfinder the video itself is quite nice as well as you can see here and in our separate 1080p sample uploaded to YouTube and the still image results are quite nice as well colours are typically nice and rich and with enough light the camera can deliver some pretty fine results outdoors especially if you make use of the various shooting modes available and maybe you fiddle with a filter or two here and there just for fun indoors pictures are a little less impressive sometimes overexposed with edges a little blurrier and a little more washed out a deluxe edition camera this is not but for the typical smartphone user it should do fine the front-facing camera a 1.6 megapixel unit is as usual nothing to write home about the 8xt performed well in terms of reception keeping pace with the sprint HTC One as we darted to and fro across Boston over the course of five days throughput was pretty inconsistent on LTE though jumping from download highs in the low 20 megabits around midnight to comparatively sluggish 2 megabit speeds around rush hour and everywhere in between one of the Halo features of the 8 xt is boomsound HTC's forward firing speakers paired with Beats Audio the first time such a combination has ever been seen on Windows Phone and it works brilliantly space is fast Kappa I'm sure you're aware that only one out of every 43,000 planet supports intelligent life sound is loud and clear quite a bit of bass and almost no distortion even at maximum volume if the screen were a bit bigger this would make the perfect phone to take in a movie on Netflix but even as it is it's a very enjoyable viewing experience thanks to those speakers and audio performance over the included earbuds is quite nice as well including FM radio listening which we found surprisingly static-free just keep an eye on your battery when you're blasting that media though the lower capacity pack does indeed result in a pretty spare runtime with heavy use we ran the thing dry and quite a bit less than a day and the phone's battery scored lower in the WP bench exhaustion tests than most other devices more impressions in our full written review head pocket now the Windows Phone ecosystem has been growing steadily and we were happy to see Nokia's here suite which is a huge value add as HTC has yet to match Nokia's custom titles in volume or in usefulness that said HTC's custom hub adds some nice flair to the homescreen provides a convenient shortcut to news weather and stocks in addition to an instant visual distinction from other windows phones of course there's a usual sprint bloatware here to which you'll find either useful or if not at least easy to uninstall we want to like the 8 xt as much as any other mid-range Windows Phone we really really do it's hardware is beautiful its camera software is fun and its boomsound implementation is even better than on the HTC One but it's software just doesn't measure up now is the 8x T the first phone we've encountered with a laggy or buggy UI no absolutely not but we've come to expect a minimum standard from Windows Phone if nothing else you can usually count on phones running the platform to at least be snappy and mostly reliable regardless of their specs so the 8x T's failure to deliver in that area is jarring and frankly it's a big surprise coming from the same people who made the excellent sense suite for the HTC One can you live with the 8x T in its current form probably if you keep all your music hosted locally and don't mind occasionally putting your calls on speakerphone by accident but those are sacrifices you shouldn't have to make especially on Sprint's first new Windows Phone in over two years a software update would fix all this and we hope it does but we have no way of knowing when HTC will get around to that if it happens we'll update our written review at pocket now for now if you're married to Sprint and dead set on Windows Phone the 8 xt is your only option and you can get it for 99 bucks on contract through sprint or at much lower prices down to even a penny at third-party retailers if you're dying for a Windows Phone 8 device and you're open to switching carriers though there are many other better windows phones out there that deliver a much more polished experience we give the HTC 8x T a 6.5 out of 10 I hope you enjoyed our video review of the HTC 8x T folks the written review will be available at PocketNow pocketnow.com no later than August 2nd so check that out for more detailed information before you go please toss us a like if you enjoyed the video leave a comment down below if you have some feedback which we are sure you do and follow us on social media so you don't miss future reviews and mobile coverage from pocket now in the meantime thank you so much for watching and we'll see you soon