HTC Windows Phone 8s is the second Smartphone of the new era in HTC Windows Phone series after 8X. This is an entry-level product with features that we could find on almost all Windows Phone 7 models. The highlights of this device are its 4-inch display, 1GHz processor, 512 RAM, 2GB Storage and Windows Phone 8 operating system. It has a quite compact 4 inches display, with a Super LCD screen and resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. There is a micro USB port for charging and data transfer, and the Beats Audio technology to deliver decent audio output. There is no front camera a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, fits on the back. HTC features multiple colors and many combinations like gray / yellow, gray / blue, black / white, blue / red. Lets checkout all its aspects in detail.
Design
Let’s start with design. HTC 8S has a sleek, compact and stylish design. It fits in hand comfortably and is also very good in grip. The unit that we are testing is RED color but it comes in several attractive colors as I said above. It features compact design and even after 4 inches screen it is very light. Touch screen provides good quality output with fast responsive touch support. Read emails and view websites is quite nice, but the lack of HD could be felt when viewing videos. The body is made up of plastics is less flashy. The micro-SIM card and micro SD find their home in the bottom of the phone not visible. The buttons seem good at the front. Navigation options on this device also seem very comfortable. There are three touch sensitive keys including home button in the center, Bing search button to the right and back button on the left. Above the screen are the HTC logo and the speaker, with embedded notification LED. On the back side, lies a 5 Megapixel cameras and LED flash, HTC Logo again in center, beats logo and Loud Speaker at bottom. While in the lower part lays a micro USB port. A 3.5mm headphone jack and Screen Lock/Power button is placed on the top. Weight not exceeding 113 grams, making it extremely lightweight Smartphone.
As far as SIM Card and MicroSD card slot is concerned, you will need to remove this small part of the body at the back side. This remains in different color under two color combination designs. For example if your phone color is in Blue+Gray.then this part will be in gray color and same for black-white.this part of the body will be in white color. As our device is only in single color, so the panel is in the same red color.
Screen
HTC 8S comes with 4inch Super LCD display offering 800 x 480 pixels resolution. The touch sensitivity is very good. As per our experience we have seen such touch sensitivity only Samsung mobiles so far. Screen is very good for reading emails and web browsing but when we talk about watching HD videos, this screen fails. Contrast well with brightness. It will be true to say that between the designs of the interface of this mobile phone we got colorful output. Overall the display is of good quality either indoors or outdoors.
Operating system:
HTC 8S is a mid-range phone with good performance. Through 1 GHz processor dual-core Snapdragon S4 backed by 512MB of RAM it gives a decent output. Even for gaming you can expect a bit nice output. Compare to Android phones this kind of specifications appears light on a Windows Phone 8 and offers great output. To this is added a memory low, with only 4GB, but fortunately a micro SD slot will add up to 32 GB of memory. As we all know the device running on Microsoft lest “Windows Phone 8” os for mobiles. The hardware of this device is fully optimized to get complete performance of this OS. I mean there is no lag or freeze. Applications response quickly on touch. Also you can open and access multiple applications at the same time. For navigating opened applications you just need to press and hold back for 2 second.
Though there are not many applications like Android, but there are enough useful applications available on Windows Phone Store which can make your day to day life easy, especially professional life. You get Microsoft One Note pre-installed. Also there are options through which you can add your Google account, facebook, twitter, outlook, LinkedIn and many others accounts like Exchange/POP/IMAP. However there are several games available on Windows Phone Store let me tell you that this device is not for gaming. You will not love playing games in this device. As per few tips, you can silent the phone call by just putting the phone on table on its screen’s side. Or you can capture screenshot of this device by press Power + Windows Logo at the same time.
Connectivity:
This part of mobile phone has very few things to cover. For connectivity it just has a 3.5mm headphone jack and micro USB port on the body while the MicroSim and Memory card slot lies on the backside. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth you can simply connect the other devices with it also. There is no application to use GPS offline or streaming music. But you can find the same on Windows Store.
Multimedia & Surfing
As per Video and audio playback, I can say it is normal device. However you can enjoy BEATS audio if you are listening music on headphone. Also I said earlier, the device is not good for HD videos but to far extent I loved watching videos on HTC 8S screen. Multimedia playback is identical to the HTC 8X. As for the sound, it is “boosted” through a partnership with Beats Audio. HTC 8S is really very good in web browsing and other professional work like checking emails and all. Web browsing via Internet Explorer 10 is fluid and fast enough. The screen resolution of 800 x 480 pixels sometime is not really good for surfing or reading.
Camera
Camera quality provided with HTC 8S is average. It is a5 megapixel camera, provides very good image quality outdoors but may disappoint you in indoor shooting. One best part of this camera is its Shutter button. It is very comfortable to click images without shaking the phone, which happens we need to click shutter button on touch screen. HTC also provides you optional lenses which you can download and enhance your images. For example, you can see I have downloaded and installed “Night Vision”.
Battery
This is where I was really surprised. Though HTC 8S comes with just 1700 mAH battery, I’m getting more than 30 hours of battery life once I charged the phone 100% though the device remains connected on Wi-Fi every second. Also I keep using Facebook, WhatsApp, Mails, etc.
Conclusion
At the price of Rs 19000, HTC 8S is a very good device with latest Windows Phone 8 operating system. In short I can say it is very good choice for professional people who need to be remained connected with their mails, messages and love browsing. His only weakness right now is the lack of applications but mostly games. As per its performance, I can say 8S is a very strong competitor of other Windows Phone 8 based devices such as Nokia Lumia 620 and Lumia 820. Though it lacks NFC or HD Screen, it has amazing optimized Windows Phone 8 operating system with Beats Audio mode. HTC 8S is a mid-range phone with good performance. Backed 1 GHz processor dual-core Snapdragon S4 and 512MB of RAM it gives a decent output. Compare to Android this is much less resource intensive.
As I already said above, as per design and colors, HTC 8S is very attractive with very comfortable navigation option. Also its calling features, call voice, loudspeaker is good. We can connect this phone over Wi-Fi, 3g, Micro USB to transfer files, which means connectivity options are also fine. Over all at the price of 19k, it is a good Windows Phone 8 based Smartphone.
Pros:
- Attractive design, Compact and stylish design.
- Connectivity options
- Beats Audio.
- Business Apps.
Cons:
- Screen not able to play HD videos
- No built-in camera enhancement options.
- No NFC.
