[Windows Phone 8x by HTC] Bonom Denej:
Hi everyone,

I'm just here to share my recent experience with my freshly bought 8X compared to my recently sold Titan.

The device is gorgeous, and it doesn't feel as thick as it actually is (I was surprised when I read that it was over a centimeter thick in the center), and compared to my Titan, even if the size are in the same categories, I really like the 16:9 aspect in the hand. Also compared to my Titan, the screen is much better. Not in term of obvious pixel density and color saturation, but in term of feel under the finger. They simply flow on the screen, and in 4 days (of pretty heavy use) I didn't really clean the screen, when with my Titan I had to use a microfiber cloth at least once every two or three days because of the fingerprints. So yeah, I really like the feel in the hand and how the phone looks. It catches the eye, and all the people I talk too are asking me what is that nice looking phone. Regarding battery life, as I said, those 4 days were pretty heavy in use and the phone did well, lasting all day long.

I love Windows Phone since the beginning. From my Omnia 7 bought the day it was available in France, I've been in love with this OS, and managed to convert my two best friends to switch (one from iOS, the other from Android). I'm waiting for them to get their WP8 devices so we can take advantages of the rooms (we share a lot of things together, but always all three of us, so it'll be pretty handy I think). But, because of HTC's way of dealing with their products and some WP8 weirdness, I really miss some features from my Titan.

The GPS app wasn't really expensive and worked well for me in France (I drive a lot), and I was also used to flip the phone to activate speakerphone... I did that a few hours ago, and felt dumb when I realized it did nothing. In the last two days, I drove about 7 hours in places I don't really know. With my Titan, I wasn't really worried, because I had the GPS app, and when it was for shorter distance and that I didn't want to bother with that heavy GPS app, I could still use Bing maps to navigate, but yesterday and today were painful because I had none of those (thankfully, the places weren't too small so it was easy to find) because HTC didn't put the Location app on the WP8 Store, and because Bing now doesn't have a turn-by-turn navigation (Why is that ? To promote Nokia phones with Nokia Drive ??) ! Also, on Bing maps, the satellite view is blurry as hell and I even have freaking clouds over my house when it's just fine on Bing's website or even on my Titan, and let's not forget the fact that the app isn't smooth, the framerate is really poor because of the vectorized text, but hell, look at Google Maps on an Android phones, it had way more data on screen and is really fluid ! Seriously, what the f- Microsoft ?

Now, since I'm driving a lot, I'm using a car mount, and I really love the vocal commands for texts... But these last two days, I haven't been able to send a single one since the 8X doesn't understand what I'm saying with my engine turned on. With my Titan, I knew that over 90/100km/h, there was too much noise in my car, and that the voice recognition sometimes messed up. But it was true for long messages, for short answer like "thanks" or else, I could easily say "Respond [...] Thanks [...] Send" and it worked like a charm. Here, with my 8x, even on a parking, without actually driving, if the engine is on, it can't recognize a single word ! Engine turned off, it works perfectly. And the phone is actually closer from me than my Titan was ! That's an other major WTF for me. How can such thing gets worse in such a scale ? I just can't use my 8X while driving (and as I said, this is one key element from me).

Finally, my last complaint would be about the front facing camera : Why is it so slow ? If I reach 10 fps in bright light it's already amazing, I wanted to compare the wide lens with a friend, he holded me his Galaxy S III, and when the wide angle is, indeed, really nice, I felt really stupid when comparing the framerate. The GS3 wasn't far from 30fps when my 8X was looking stop-motion like. How can such high-end phone feature a such poor front-facing camera experience.

So far I like the phone, but the comparison with the Titan regarding some key features and some low-FPS from time to time for me is not really flattering. I really hope I'll be able to fix those issues I have with my phone. For navigation, I'll probably by the Navigon Europe since it's probably the better you can get, but too bad it doesn't offer a trial. But for voice recognition... I'm actually pissed.