A year and a half ago, I switched to Windows Phone with the HTC8X for a month
to see if the platform could woo me away from iOS. Four blog videos and a month
later, the answer was a definite no. But Windows Phone has had a lot of time to
mature. So, when HTC reached out about the 1 M8 for Windows running the latest
8.1 version featuring Cortana voice control, I jumped at the opportunity to
review it.
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kick things off positively. Hardware-wise, HTC didn't change much,
but I don't really feel like they had to. I love this phone. It's the 1M8,
man. It's got a fast CPU, ample RAM, enough storage on board with micro SD
expansion if you need more front-facing boom sound speakers. their ultra pixel
camera with a two-tone flash that is designed to perform best in low light
scenarios. And finally, that wonderful glass and aluminum 1M series build
quality that is second to none. Anyway, if you want to know more about the
hardware, you should check out our original 1 M8 review where I basically say it's awesome. This video is more
about the software. Off the bat, Windows Phone has some advantages. It runs
extraordinarily well on relatively low-end hardware. Mind you, so does
Android these days. It's a tiled display
and navigation animations are eye-catching and beautiful. Mind you,
what isn't these days? And finally, it works really well with Windows services
like Office Mobile, One Drive, and Skype. But what doesn't these days?
Okay, so those weren't really advantages at all then, were they? This is going to
be a rough video. Setup was easy. I imported my accounts and settings from
my old 8X in just a couple minutes. Also, Google account two-step validation
is super easy to deal with now and doesn't require app specific passwords,
so that's good. But once I landed on the desktop with its live tiles, shoot, I
don't really know where to begin. Um, just like last time around, I started by
trying to find equivalents for the essential apps that I use every day, and
it's a real chore. The first party Facebook and Twitter apps are pretty
good. Instagram has a very functional beta. Speedtest.net, Flickster, and
WhatsApp all worked fine. Plex is available, but I'm not paying $5 for it
again, so I can't comment on how good that one is. And Dropbox and Sonos
services are enabled through third party apps that have some, but not all of the
functionality and ease of use of the official ones on other platforms. Which
leads us to the stuff that's missing. Google stuff is a nightmare. So, kiss
goodbye stuff like the YouTube Studio Creator app and Hangouts. And while
Google Play Music has a thirdparty app, this very amusing review the developer
left on his own app really highlights the issues with relying on these when
the APIs can change overnight just like that. And then in no particular order,
here's some other stuff that I use every day without suitable replacements. Harmony remote control, drop cam,
replacement keyboard such as Swift Key. I mean, even Apple is going to start
allowing third party keyboards in iOS 8. Come on, Microsoft. Speaking of which,
scam apps. The only things labeled Swift
Key in the Windows Phone Store are straight up scams. One of which has been
there for over a month without being cleaned up. For shame, Microsoft, which
I guess leads to a discussion about the stock keyboard. Its text prediction is
accurate but slow. I felt like often times it was missing keystrokes. And the
thing is so huge that a I simply can't
type on it without accidentally mashing B every time I go for the space bar and
B with autocorrect autofill predictions
the navigation bar and some obnoxiously huge UI elements in some places. It's
amazing how little of the screen you actually get to use sometimes. I guess
it's got swipe style typing now but I don't care cuz I don't really use that.
It needs other things to improve first. Which leads to yet another complaint.
Who is this UI made for? At least TouchWiz knows it's for people whose
eyesight is starting to go and who aren't that familiar with phones with
nice, you know, loud sound effects when you mash on the gigantic buttons.
Windows phone, on the other hand, doesn't really give you any indication
whether a button press worked other than, you know, after a little bit of
doing the thing. And on top of that, a single screen can have text as wide as
your face in headings and then like super tiny micro text that you'd have to
squint at unless you have perfect vision. And on top of that, I just plain
don't find it very intuitive to use. Drag down to see your notifications.
Okay, with you so far. Click an email. All right, brings up an email. With you
so far. I'm looking at the email. Okay, now I'm done. Now what? Maybe if I press
back, I'll land in the inbox. No, no, that just takes me away. Okay. Well, is
there maybe another button in case I want to look at other emails when I'm done with this one email that was in my
notifications? Or do I actually have to go all the way back to the desktop and
open the email client from there? Wow,
that's slow. And lots of things are slow like this. How about a quick draw speed
competition to dial someone's phone number? No. T9 dialing is a big heaping
wheelbarrow full of suck on top of all the other things that are slow about
this process. Some stuff is okay though. Quick toggles are reconfigurable in the
main stuff including portable hotspot sharing is here. Also, I was corrected
when I said on our podcast that folder support on the desktop is still missing.
You can create folders of apps, making organization quite a bit easier now. So,
that's good. Uh, changing ringtones lets you change without previewing at full
volume, which is nice. Good for parents with newborns. And I love the control
that you have over snoozing and dismissing notifications. Every OS needs
this. Let me control how long it snoozes
for. And there's more positive stuff, too. Cortana is actually quick to use
and seems to learn a little bit after the first time for a given task, like
call Ivonne. It doesn't force me to navigate unnecessarily through menus to
confirm things. So, for things like basic voice dialing and sending quick
SMS messages, it's really fast. But I
also think it's been oversold a little bit. While actual speech recognition for
me was great, there's still no support for basic system setting stuff like
volume control and screen brightness. And I found it very flowbreaking to have
to press the voice button in between interactions. You know, like, "Show me
where there's a sushi restaurant. Okay, here's something nearby. You can't just
keep talking. You have to press the button again. It is very promising for
the future, though, and I'm excited to see where Microsoft is taking this one because it's pretty darn mature for a
first attempt. Okay, so it's conclusion and more thoughts time. I think the
bottom line for me here is that while in my mind HTC did a great job of
delivering the best enthusiast grade Windows Phone 8.1 experience they could,
you know, their social media feed, Blink Feed, works as a live tile. the Duo
camera weird depth feature and quick video and photo highlight reel features
are enabled through apps as well and
they did a great job. But even if their entire company was staffed by like
cowboy astronaut millionaires, there was nothing they could do to make the
Windows phone ecosystem suitable for enthusiast high-end use. Nothing. Basic
functionality, call people, take pictures, and video chat on Skype. All
this stuff works. So, I guess I could recommend it for my mom, but go any
further than that, and I don't understand why anyone would want it. For
intermediate users like my sister, she's going to be baffled by the need to use
third party applications, some of which cost money, for stuff like YouTube. And
then as we get into the higherend enthusiasts who are able to jump through
those technical hoops, the ones that are likely to be also jumping on the trends
of like wearables and connected devices and stuff. And we got another deal
breaker. The lack of third party developer support becomes a complete
nogo for Windows and it happens over and
over. The unofficial Pebble app does some cool stuff actually, but doesn't
notify of calls and texts apparently due to Microsoft policies. Deal breaker. The
unofficial Drop Cam app supports new images every two and a half seconds with
no live video, audio, or historical video scrubbing. Deal breaker. Um, and
it's just on and on like that. Battery life was a very positive point with the
phone often lasting me two full days or more. But I think a big part of this is
how inefficient to use it was and therefore how little time I actually
spent using it. Even stupid stuff like trying to find a draft email that I
started creating on the desktop in the stock email client, which is otherwise
one of the better aspects of Windows Phone was just such a waste of time that
I would just walk to my computer if it was nearby. So, all in all, this phone
baffles me a little bit. It's a phone for no one. I understand that some
people have a thing for supporting the market underdog and are willing to work
around numerous inconveniences to do it or have specific complaints about Google
and Apple that would cause them to want to avoid using the services of both of
those companies. And for you, there's high-end Windows phones like the 1 M8
for Windows. For everyone else, there's stuff out there that's just plain more
functional and easier to use. And in the case of the 1 M8, also exactly the same
price. So, the conclusion pretty much writes
itself here, guys. Thanks for watching. Like the video if you liked it, dislike
it if you disliked it. Leave a comment letting me know if you have some thoughts on the whole Windows phone
versus other platforms thing. I would love to hear from you. Uh, in the video
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