HTC Windows Phone 8X (AT&T)

Size matters. The past year has seen mobile phone sizes creep up, following greater demands for big-screen Web browsing, big-screen gaming, and big, powerful batteries. But human hand sizes haven't grown in response. Enter the sleek, palm-friendly HTC 8X ($99/8GB, $199/16GB with contract): a now-rare, high-end smartphone that can actually fit in your hand with it's modest 4.3-inch screen. While the 8X isn't the most powerful Windows Phone 8?that prize goes to the Nokia Lumia 920?it's likely to be the best balanced, with the right combination of high-end features, usable size, and an affordable $99-with-contract price.

Physical Design and Battery Life
HTC calls the 8X design the "pyramid," because the phone's internal components are stacked, well, like a pyramid. The phone tapers at the edges and bulges slightly in the middle. But it isn't truly round on the back: it sits stably on a table. Most of the body is a high-grade, comfortable-to-touch soft matte polycarbonate plastic. AT&T hasn't confirmed which body colors of the 8X it will sell, although the carrier has already handed out review units. Go figure. The international handset comes in dark blue and a greenish-yellow that I've been calling chartreuse to differentiate it from Nokia's purer yellow. The yellow makes your eyes water. The blue, though, is subtler and more professional than Nokia's loud, glossy finishes.

At 5.2 by 2.6 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 4.6 ounces, the 8X is actually taller than the Lumia 920, but it's much narrower and a full two ounces lighter, which is what you really notice. Compared with the Samsung Galaxy S III , it's shorter and narrower but slightly thicker. I actually prefer my phones even a little smaller than this?the HTC One S, as I've said a bunch of times, is my ideal?but the size of this phone won't appal any fan of 4-inch and 4.3-inch-screen devices.

Front and center, there's a tight 4.3-inch, 1,280-by-720 Super LCD 2 screen covered by Gorilla Glass on the front. At 341 pixels per inch, it's the highest-density screen available today. The screen looks sharp and bright until you see the Lumia 920's ClearBlack IPS LCD panel, which makes the 8X look washed out. The Power, Volume, and Camera buttons are slight missteps; they're very subtle and a bit hard to find without looking.

The 1,800mAh battery is slightly smaller than the Lumia 920's 2,000mAh cell, but the Lumia 920's bigger 4.5-inch screen uses more power. On talk time, the 8X lasted 8 hours, 28 minutes, about 90 minutes less than the 920. But we were able to get 4 hours and 50 minutes of YouTube streaming over LTE with the screen at the highest brightness, almost an hour longer than the 920.

Phone Calls, Internet and Battery
I tested the 8X in a post-apocalyptic, hurricane-ravaged New York City on a truly wobbly AT&T LTE network, so I'm writing off all of the dropped calls; We've been dropping calls all over the place on several phones this week. That said, call quality was acceptable, but not extraordinary. The earpiece and speakerphone are both a bit quiet, which is surprising considering how powerful the phone's Beats-powered headphone amp is. I got a little bit of garble transmitting a call, but did I mention the hurricane?

The phone had no problem pairing with a Plantronics Voyager Legend ?Bluetooth headset and triggering Microsoft's voice commands from the headset. The voice command software, however, really leaves something to be desired. It dials the phone just fine, but freeform queries like "how's the weather?" result in Web searches rather than returning usable results.

AT&T's LTE network typically offers the fastest downloads in the nation, where it's available. Right now it covers 80 cities, well short of Verizon's 400 LTE markets. Here in New York, I've gotten consistently faster results on AT&T than on Verizon. In our most recent pre-hurricane tests in New York, we saw 19.21Mbps down on AT&T as compared to only 7.67Mbps on Verizon. Performance really varies city by city, though, so make sure to check our Fastest Mobile Networks tests, which covered 30 U.S. cities.

The 8X supports a wide number of frequency bands, making it able to connect to global HSPA+ and LTE networks?that is, if AT&T has roaming agreements with those carriers. Right now there are no LTE roaming agreements in place, so international roaming will be at still-impressive HSPA+ 42 speeds. The handset also supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, and NFC. It works as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to 8 devices with the appropriate plan. Both the 8X and the Lumia 920 were able to max out my 15Mbps cable connection over Wi-Fi.

(Next page: Performance, Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions)

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