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Now, you wouldn't know it looking at the packaging of these two phones. This is

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the packaging for the 8X. This is the packaging for the 8S. But the 8S is

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actually the little brother of the 8X. So, it has a bit of a lower spec

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overall, a 1 ghahz processor versus the 1.4 GHz S4 processor in the 8X. It also

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has 512 megs of RAM, 4 gigs of onboard

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storage, which probably seems like not that much in the context of installing

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like a ton of apps or anything like that, but this is more of an entry-level

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phone overall. So, the screen resolution is only 800x480, which is still a fairly

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respectable, I think 226 pixels per inch or something along those lines. It is

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smaller than the 8X. So, if you guys don't know already, I'm using an 8X as

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my daily driver phone. I switched from my iPhone 4 cuz I'm doing a 30-day

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challenge where I'm trying to see if I can survive in the sort of fewer apps

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available and sort of less wellestablished ecosystem that is

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Windows Phone 8 as a as an avid OS user.

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So, I'm in the middle of that. Um, I don't remember where I was going with

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this, but yes, it is the younger brother of the 8X. It is smaller. It has more of

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a rounded shape to it that I actually find more natural to to hold. And I'd

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actually go as far as to say I like the finish on the back of it better than the

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8X as well because the 8X is a little bit slippery on the back, whereas the

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soft touch feel on the 8S is uh is a bit

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more grippy. So, the fact that I have small hands makes it easier to hold from

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the get-go. And then the roundedness and the uh and the grippyiness means I

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should be able to actually type more easily on an 8S than an 8X. One of the

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cool things about Windows Phone is the fact that the way they've optimized the

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UI, it should be snappy pretty much regardless of the processing power

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available on the phone. But while that's uh while we're waiting for that to turn

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on, there's the screen. It's using Super LCD versus Super LCD 2 in the 8X

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version. Uh so while we're waiting for that to turn on, let's do a quick iPhone

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size comparison just because, you know, it's what I do. So this is an iPhone 4

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and then this is the 8S up here. You can tell because they look very, very, very

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different. Um, so the 8S has a slightly

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slightly larger screen. There you go.

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Terms of the width, it's fairly similar, but it is a little bit taller because it's 16 by9. And then you can tell my

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iPhone 4 is uh pretty beat up overall. The rear camera is a 5 megapixel camera.

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It does have a built-in flash. Um, unlike the 8X, which has notification

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LEDs on both sides. So, there's actually one built in here and then one built in

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under the grill on the front. It looks like the 8S doesn't get that feature,

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and it also doesn't get a front-facing camera, unfortunately. Now, I don't want

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this to turn into a whole huge list of what the 8S doesn't have, because it

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does have a few things going for it. It's got a micro SD expansion slot,

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which you can access by removing this bottom piece right here somehow. I

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actually haven't uh I haven't had it out of the box yet, so I don't know how to

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access it, but you the SIM installation is uh not down there. Yeah, is down

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there as well as micro SD expansion. But

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part of that is to compensate for the fact that the 8S has 4 gigs of onboard

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storage. So that means for installing applications, you're going to have 4

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gigs of space, including Windows Phone

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8. All right, so we figured out a couple of things off camera. Number one is that

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we all agree that it has a really nice feel to it just with the reduced weight,

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the size, the the grippyiness of the back. And we figured out There you go.

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That's how to remove the chin from the phone. So, it actually comes off

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reasonably easily. And it looks like there's a built-in sensor there that uh

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will allow the phone to know that you've opened it up. So, that's good. There's

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your micro SD expansion. There's your SIM card. And then you can go ahead and

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close it back up. It because it wasn't easy to remove, I would say that it was

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Oh, yeah. There it goes. SIM error. I would say that it's um not easy to

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accidentally remove because you have to actually put pressure on it this specific way. We had to check the

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instructions in order to figure that out. So this is the Windows phone

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interface. Uh we can click get started. Now most uh okay the general consensus

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about this phone seems to be that the UI is still very snappy. Remember that's

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what that's what Microsoft has done. So here we're going to sign in later.

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That's what Microsoft has done with Windows Phone 8 is they've attempted to

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say okay well regardless of whether it's a 1 ghahz processor or 1.7 GHz processor

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or whatever else we still want the UI to feel very smooth and responsive. Now,

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I've noticed this with the 8X, but obviously I haven't spent any time with the 8S yet. So, I won't have uh I won't

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have any specific feedback on that. In terms of dedicated buttons, it's again

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in line with that Windows experience. So, you've got a back button, a Windows

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key. The back button also serves as a multitasking button. So, you hold that

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down to access your multitasking applications. So, for example, here on

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I'm sorry, I'm demoing on an 8X, but that's not what we're unboxing right

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now. So, you just hold that down and you can skip between all of your different

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uh all your different applications that you have open. So, that's what that

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button's for. The Windows button goes back to sort of the main home screen,

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which is where you keep all of your live tiles. So, there you can see little

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previews and notifications. You can scroll down and access other live tiles.

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And then the search button. So, this is a dedicated search button which takes

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you to a Bing search. Now, the Bing search attempts to look at whatever

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you're searching for when you press it and go, "Okay, he's pro if he searches

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for Hello Kitty, he's probably looking for pictures." Whereas, if he searches

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for uh guide on how to drywall

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something, then he's probably looking for a video or whatever else. So, it

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tries to be intelligent that way. One of my complaints about Windows Phone is I

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wish it was more like a contextual search and it searches for whatever you

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happen to be looking at, but that's not the way it's designed. and they want it

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to be very sort of searchable. Um, the phone does include 7 gigs of storage on

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Sky Drive. So, that and the expansion

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using micro SD should help to aliate some of the some of the issues people

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might have with having only 4 gigs of storage for installing apps. And for

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entry-level users, it may not be an issue. For me personally, I would find 4

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gigs to be restrictive, but if that's the case, you can always step up to, you

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know, the bigger brother, the 8X. Um, in line with that consistent Windows

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experience, you've got the buttons that are included. So, there's your 3 and a half millimeter jack here. There's your

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power button here at the top, your volume buttons here on the side, and

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finally a dedicated two-stage camera button. So, this is for the 5 megapixel

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camera. That is a back mounted camera. And the way that it works, if the phone

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is The phone's booted up now, right? Nope. Still setting up your phone. Okay.

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Again, I'm going to do this. I'm going to show it to you on the 8X because this is the one that I actually have booted

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up. So, the way that works is you actually hold it down to launch your

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camera app and then you can focus with a half

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click and then take your picture with the second click. So, I actually found

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it very very quick, very responsive to use on the 8x and we clearly haven't

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tried it on this one yet. Um, right,

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last thing to mention is that Beats audio not I was going to say sticker,

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but that Beats audio branding on the back. Um, the 8X actually has one of the

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better speakers that I've encountered on a phone yet, including uh Slick S3 that

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we've got handy here for size comparison as well. Here, I'll let you guys enjoy

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that size comparison while I talk about the audio. Um, so it has one of the

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better built-in speakers, but that's not actually what the Beats Audio branding

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is about. The Beats Audio branding is all about the headphone experience. So,

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you can actually turn it on or turn it off. And what it does is it boosts up

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the audio level. So, it does make the audio louder. And it also uh amps up the

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lows and the highs. So, I personally didn't find it to make much of a

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difference for me. Well, I found it to make a difference, but I found turning

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on Beats audio didn't make my music more enjoyable for me. But I didn't find the

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onboard audio for the 8X, again, I'm talking about the 8X to be objectionable

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either. So, you can turn Beats audio off and then it's a perfectly good audio

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chipset in there. So, it wasn't an issue that I had it turned off. So, the Beats

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audio branding is here. So, this one has Beats audio as well. We can have a look

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at what's included in terms of accessories. So, you get a couple HTC

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stickers. D. You get a Windows Phone 8S

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by HTC quick guide that shows you some basic stuff like installing the SIM,

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which we used um customizing your start

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um your start menu, customizing your ringtone, uh keeping in touch. So, the

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people app is actually very useful. It takes sort of your Facebook, your

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LinkedIn, your Twitter, and all that stuff and just kind of puts it all in

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one place. And it works very well. It

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works better, I'd say, for consuming information than it does for posting

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information because I found things like tweeting from the people app somewhat

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limiting and a little bit non-intuitive, but it's great for just kind of seeing

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what's up with the people that you follow or the people that you're connected to at a glance. uh rooms and

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groups. Keeping things in sync. Another thing that I absolutely love about

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Windows Phone. Ah, all the apps finished installing. All done. There we go. So,

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the 8S is fired up. One of the other things that I love about Windows Phone

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is moving media on and off of the phone is absolutely drag and drop. You plug in

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a micro USB cable and then it's just a folder, which is the way that every

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phone should work for copying music. I should not have to deal with iTunes to

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get some music on my stupid phone. That's just ridiculous. So, here we go.

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That's what the uh that's how the UI smoothness is on the 8S

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here. So, again, I can't really see anything that would particularly bother

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me about it compared to the 8X. Now, if you're browsing the internet, for

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example, you'd probably run into things that are a little bit slower on the 8S

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versus the 8X, but the Windows phone ecosystem is designed for

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this. I don't know if I mentioned this before. It has 512 megs of RAM. And

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right, let's see if there's anything else included. Right, so you do get a

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wall wart. There we go. As well as the

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USB cable that I mentioned before that you might need. And I think that pretty

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much covers it. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the 8S

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from HTC. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings,

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reviews, and other computer