HTC 8XT Pro Reviews

Feels great. Call quality is even better than the Nokia Lumia–with fewer dropped calls in the same areas and better overall reception. But Nokia Lumia is the better Window Phone. The 8XT doesn’t offer any equivalent to the cooler company-made apps on the Nokia Lumia 928. Also that device’s screen resolution is immaculate with the ClearBlack tech in the display. It produces elegant, deeper blacks and higher color vibrancy. You don’t get that at all with the HTC 8XT. Blacks lack richness and depth. So anything that takes advantage of deep blacks will suffer a bit–not critically but–noticeably so. The form factor for the 8XT is perversely fondle-friendly–I’ll give it that for sure. I can’t say enough about the feel in-hand, which is accentuated by the soft-touch backing. The camera is a very strong in both low light and and naturally well lit settings. But the dainty size, candy-like color options and dearth of high end innards pushes this one more toward a casual but style-conscious mobile user.

We like the little tweaks HTC has made on the 8XT, and the lack of Sprint branding makes it look even classier. While it doesn't offer the most beautiful display, the remaining aspects of the phone help make up for it in terms of value. It might not be different enough to persuade Android or iOS users to switch -- nor is it a good enough Windows Phone to convince anyone to switch networks -- but from what we can tell, it's a good mid-range WP8 device that deserves a little attention from would-be upgraders.

We want to like the 8XT as much as any other midrange Windows Phone – we really do. Its hardware is beautiful, its camera software is fun, and its BoomSound implementation is even better than the One’s. But its software just doesn’t measure up. Now, is the 8XT the first phone we’ve encountered with a laggy or buggy UI? Absolutely not. But as we said on the most recent Pocketnow Weekly podcast, we’ve come to expect a minimum standard from Windows Phone; if nothing else, you can usually count on phones running the platform to be snappy and reliable, regardless of their specs. So the 8XT’s failure to deliver in that area is jarring. Can you live with the 8XT in its current form? Probably, if you don’t listen to much music and don’t mind occasionally putting your calls on speakerphone by accident. But those are sacrifices you shouldn’t have to make in 2013, especially on Sprint’s first new Windows Phone in over two years. A software update would fix all of 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 do our best to circle back and report on the improvements. If you’re considering many carriers, there are plenty of other, better Windows Phones out there that deliver a much more polished experience than the 8XT does. But if you’re sticking with Sprint and dead-set on getting yourself a Windows Phone, this device is one of only two choices available to you (Samsung’s ATIV S Neo goes on sale this Friday). We won’t be sure whether the 8XT is the better of the two options until we review Samsung’s offering, but without some software refinement it’s not looking good. And we’ve gotta be honest: considering HTC’s track record for quality, that’s pretty disappointing.

As far as Windows Phones go, the HTC 8XT is a decent effort. I dislike that it dialed down the display compared to the 8X, but most other hardware features remain the same, as do the software options given the Windows Phone 8 platform. The hardware is solid and certainly usable. The signal performance and voice quality are both above average for a Sprint phone. Battery life was acceptable, but demands that you pay attention to your usage. The operating system and applications are more or less identical to other Windows Phone 8 smartphones, with little variance. I definitely prefer the HTC camera app over the stock camera, and HTC's gallery app offers more control over photos. It's a bummer that the camera and video camera produce only average results. Since Sprint customers have had no WP8 devices from which to select, the HTC 8XT at least brings the platform and all its pros/cons to the Sprint network. For the Windows Phone fans, the HTC 8XT is a choice with compromises.

Windows Phone 8 devices are finally coming to Sprint. The first of them, the HTC 8XT, is a clear descendant of the popular HTC Windows Phone 8X. We liked almost everything about that phone, so you would expect Sprint’s 8XT to be a slam dunk. Sadly, you would be wrong. The design is almost the same, but what’s under the hood is not. To get the 8XT down to $100 on contract, HTC had to make some compromises, and those choices affect the experience just enough to dampen our enthusiasm.

The HTC 8XT smartphone would have been an interesting 2012 launch for Sprint, but coming a year after the similar HTC 8X, it's just meh.

Despite our qualms about Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft's efforts, the HTC 8XT is actually a good smartphone for those who don't need tons of apps and aren't glued to their phones all day. At $99, it's hard to do better than the 8XT in terms of hardware and intuitive software (lack of notification system not included). We would recommend this phone for the person who wants to do a bit of social networking, some e-mail here and there, listening to music and taking pictures. But if your smartphone habits include more intensive activities, this budget smartphone may not be for you.

In the end we found ourselves enjoying the HTC 8XT, and are glad to see Windows Phone 8 finally make its way to all four major carriers. We once again are impressed with HTC’s ability to design a phone, but the device is not without compromises such as the decreased display resolution. What it really comes down to is your affinity for the Windows Phone OS; as pretty and smooth as it is the ecosystem just isn’t there and market share shows that. If you’re looking for a good mid-range Windows Phone device the 8XT gets our blessing, but in the end we’d imagine most users will look to a different OS, something the phone has no control over.