Okay, I'm sure I will be flamed for this, but I'm going to go ahead and say it:
The HTC 8X is not a flagship device. It may be the best Verizon has right now, but it is not a flagship piece of hardware. Microsoft and Verizon are calling it flagship hardware because they want WP8 sales to soar on Verizon since they are the biggest US carrier and this is the best they will have at launch.
Before you hit that reply button, read the reasoning:
* Only 16GB of space, and the original design allowed for 8GB even. Even if you put all your music in the cloud for a *next-gen* Windows Phone this is paltry room. I have WP7 HTC Trophy, which is only a fraction of the power, and I have filled up the 16GB with my offline GPS app and games. Games for WP8 will eventually be much bigger than the ones for WP7 due to the additional graphics power offered by WP8 hardware. So then you get into space management which no one is a fan of, and you have to deal with streaming music which doesn't work great in all areas.
* No gyroscope (engadget's review is wrong). Probably not a huge deal, but definitely a flagship differentiator.
* Only a 4.3" screen. While this is definitely *big enough,* it is no longer "flagship" big. Flagships are now 4.5-4.8" in size. Some may actually prefer a smaller screen, but this point is no less valid due to that.
* HTC themselves admit they have a better product in the pipeline, the quad core HTC Zenith. I truly believe this product is ready and was not released because Microsoft was unable to finish optimizing WP8 for quad core in time; Microsoft has said as much, that they optimized launch for dual core.
* Original model did not have wireless charging. Verizon had to add this to make the phone look more high end.
However, Microsoft wants people to buy in droves so they had HTC declare this mid/high-grade phone as a high-end 'flagship' model and give it the 'X' designation so people would buy it thinking they were getting cream of the crop. They needed to do this to ensure Verizon sales once they both learned Nokia was going exclusive AT&T with the 920 again and realized quad core would not be ready for launch!
SO, in conclusion, this is an awesome phone. But it is not a flagship phone. It is a mid to high end model which has a 4.7" flagship quad-core brother that will be released once WP8 is optimized for quad core in 2013. I don't mean to harp on the point, I just feel Microsoft/HTC has been a bit deceiving in the marketing of this device. This is not to say it is a bad device, but they are marketing it as something more than it is. It is the new gen's equivalent of last gen's midrange HTC trophy, not the flagship HTC titan.
The HTC 8X is not a flagship device. It may be the best Verizon has right now, but it is not a flagship piece of hardware. Microsoft and Verizon are calling it flagship hardware because they want WP8 sales to soar on Verizon since they are the biggest US carrier and this is the best they will have at launch.
Before you hit that reply button, read the reasoning:
* Only 16GB of space, and the original design allowed for 8GB even. Even if you put all your music in the cloud for a *next-gen* Windows Phone this is paltry room. I have WP7 HTC Trophy, which is only a fraction of the power, and I have filled up the 16GB with my offline GPS app and games. Games for WP8 will eventually be much bigger than the ones for WP7 due to the additional graphics power offered by WP8 hardware. So then you get into space management which no one is a fan of, and you have to deal with streaming music which doesn't work great in all areas.
* No gyroscope (engadget's review is wrong). Probably not a huge deal, but definitely a flagship differentiator.
* Only a 4.3" screen. While this is definitely *big enough,* it is no longer "flagship" big. Flagships are now 4.5-4.8" in size. Some may actually prefer a smaller screen, but this point is no less valid due to that.
* HTC themselves admit they have a better product in the pipeline, the quad core HTC Zenith. I truly believe this product is ready and was not released because Microsoft was unable to finish optimizing WP8 for quad core in time; Microsoft has said as much, that they optimized launch for dual core.
* Original model did not have wireless charging. Verizon had to add this to make the phone look more high end.
However, Microsoft wants people to buy in droves so they had HTC declare this mid/high-grade phone as a high-end 'flagship' model and give it the 'X' designation so people would buy it thinking they were getting cream of the crop. They needed to do this to ensure Verizon sales once they both learned Nokia was going exclusive AT&T with the 920 again and realized quad core would not be ready for launch!
SO, in conclusion, this is an awesome phone. But it is not a flagship phone. It is a mid to high end model which has a 4.7" flagship quad-core brother that will be released once WP8 is optimized for quad core in 2013. I don't mean to harp on the point, I just feel Microsoft/HTC has been a bit deceiving in the marketing of this device. This is not to say it is a bad device, but they are marketing it as something more than it is. It is the new gen's equivalent of last gen's midrange HTC trophy, not the flagship HTC titan.
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