For quite a while I’ve been using the latest Windows Phone released from HTC/Verizon, known as the Windows Phone 8X. When it comes to cell phones I look for a lot in the devices, which can range from the look, how the O/S handles, the battery life, and other things as well. What makes the new Windows Phone 8X good or bad? That’s a good question! Would you like to know what I liked and disliked about this newer device? That’s what you’ll find out in this review of the Windows Phone 8X from HTC.

To start, let’s discuss the basics of the device. The screen is approximately 4.3 inches, which is quite a good size for an average user. The new phone also includes 16GB of storage with 1GB of RAM. Yeah, that right there is pretty cool, but I did notice at times the phone freezing up even with the power it has at its disposal. Could be anywhere from just a slight issue with the O/S to simply me trying to run a lot of things. With any smartphone, it does include Wi-Fi, which is always good, and an 8MP Camera. I’ll get to the quality of pictures and video later on. This phone is very light weight, which is a plus, but hey, if it’s going to be very light you better not forget it’s on you. I’ll admit at times I’d sit down and think what the hell is in my pocket and realize it was the phone. While some of these specs are good I had quite a few issues with this phone that pushed me away. Having a smartphone lock up so often annoyed me, programs not responding annoyed me more. The phone did have a few good features as you’ll read below but the one thing that really struck my nerve was the battery life of this device. It’s not good if only after 2+ hours your phone is blinking a red light saying battery is low. I’ll even state I’ve had other friends based at other websites have the same issue, which pushed me away from using the device daily. Hopefully the team at HTC can fix this issue since it seems to me that the Windows Phone 8X is pulling to much power to run the device efficiently.

When it came to playing games it worked perfectly, and what about surfing the net, using Skype, and other programs? Of course all those worked well, and I’ll admit some programs need some quick fixes to work better with the device. The quality of pictures and video was decent depending on what end you use. Hopefully we’ll see much better features. The quality of audio was pretty much spot on and when a headset is plugged in the beats audio boost can turn on and provide better audio. To me it seems this phone is really focused on normal usage such as phone calls, and keeping up to date rather than using it for everything from gaming, controlling the Xbox 360, and heavy app use. At least I can say I gave this phone  a lot of work in the end.

Overall, I’d say this device is worth looking at if you’re enjoying Windows products but take note the battery life sucks. As I said that it took me time to get used to the layout of the OS but with as many things that annoyed me I personally will not be picking this up. While I did enjoy playing Xbox games via the phone I don’t see myself using a device such as this until some features are updated and fixed.

The Windows Phone 8x was provided by Verizon Wireless for review purposes. For more information on products from Verizon, click here.