Windows Phone 8S by HTC

Available now
19th September 2012

The smaller and cheaper sibling of the 8X, the Windows Phone 8S by HTC is a midrange Windows 8 smartphone that competes directly against the upcoming Nokia Lumia 820.

The 8S is a midrange smartphone with a specification set that is competitive with other midrange smartphones. It's just that there's very little here to persuade customers to switch. The HTC 8S has a 4.0" 480 x 800 pixel display, a 5 megapixel primary camera, a 1GHz dual-core processor with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage plus a microSD slot and all the usual features you would expect from a modern smartphone.

But there's a problem. The HTC 8S is competing for a market that doesn't really exist.. right at the moment the interesting Windows devices are high-end handsets such as the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X. The battle for market acceptance is going to be fought with premium handsets, midrange devices like this are not going to be able to make much headway against entrenched opposition.

Don't get us wrong.. the 8S is a great looking phone, and Windows Phone 8 is the most promising new operating system since HTC introduced us to Android. But early adopters tend to go for high-end devices, and the Windows Phone 8S by HTC doesn't really have any killer features except for the fact that it is one of the few viable alternatives to Androids and the iPhone.

The Windows Phone 8S by HTC has the usual stuff. You know, 3.5G support (but only dual band), WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS (and GLONASS) positioning systems. Beats Audio is a nice enhancement for music playback, but ultimately this is a run-of-the-mill smartphone that has the peculiar disadvantage of having approximately zero downloadable applications (at the moment).

If Windows Phone 8 is going to be a success, then it is going to take some time. By the time that happens (if it ever does) then we fully expect the 8S to be obsolete. But if you really feel that the HTC 8S is for you, then it will be available from November onwards on 146 carriers in 52 countries in black, white, red, blue, grey and yellow colour schemes.

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