In general, we were pleased with how
Windows Phone 8 performs on most of the hardware we've used. When you bundle it
with a smaller screen and a less powerful chip - we expect the battery life to
be reasonably long, too. And this is indeed the case with the 8S. Talking about
the performance, Windows Phone 8 feels just like it does since ever. The navigation
of the OS feels smooth, even when compared with much higher-configured phones.
We ran it with graphically intensive racing games, and there's nothing showing
that it was slower than something running a much faster chip.
In
general, we were pleased with how Windows Phone 8 performs on most of the
hardware we've used
Knowing that your phone has less processing
power can sometimes be just sufficient for you to start noticing slow behavior.
However, we are glad to announce that this certainly wasn't the case in our
subjective use of the device. If HTC had given this phone a 720p display, we
would be struggling much to see any significant difference in the user experience
between this and its 1.5GHz brother. Of course, this is how it is in the daily
use; the tests will tell you a much more objective story, with the full fugures
below.
You can see that – maybe just like you might have expected – the 8X
excels in some way compared to the 8S, and the 8S is just too far away from Nokia's
Lumia 820’s place. The least impressive test result is possibly the 1,415 in
SunSpider. We've been let down by a series of Windows Phone 8 devices achieving
less than 1,000ms scores, so the 8S might seem to be like a bit of a disappointment,
but based on the lower-powered chip, it's not surprising, either. This is where
tests are not always useful: despite this difference in scores, we can't figure
out any point of the user experience where we saw any corresponding symptoms. It
is possible that we realized that when waking up the phone from time to time,
swiping to unlock it was just a little bit unresponsive, for which we needed a
second or third attempt to do. As for more practical features, we preferred stable,
loud and clear calls for each time. Data download speeds were as good as the
network could typically provide about 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.
How about powering all of the above? We're
still waiting for dedicated battery tests for Windows Phone 8, but by using the
same WPBench test as before, we often got 3 hours 30 minutes, a whole hour more
than the 8X could possibly do. In regular use, too, it was so easy for the
phone to survive a full day before we started searching for the charging cable.
If you ask us, the compromise that comes with a smaller battery is compensated more
than the smaller screen it needs to provide power.
Camera
A theme to be repeated here with the 8S is
that its characteristics fall into one of two categories – those it shares with
the 8X, and those it shares with the Desire X. When it comes to the camera –
unfortunately for 8S owners in the future – it falls into the latter one. And
if you're a fan of self-portraiting, you're definitely not going to have good
luck. No, there isn't a camera on the front. The performance of the rear
camera, as we suggested, is similar to that of the Desire X. Although the two
aren't exactly the same (the 8S has a 35mm lens, versus 24mm on the Desire),
both of them share the same number of pixels, along with f/2.8 aperture.
HTC
8S’s back camera
The autofocus can be started by tapping the
screen, which supports the tap-to-focus feature. Or, you can use the two-stage
dedicated shutter button to focus more broadly, and shoot photos that way. We
found that method more favorable, as we wanted to tap to focus, and then snap a
shot manually. That was for small details, but deleting piles of unwanted
photos is one of life's modern annoyances.
If you've used Windows Phone before, then
you'll know how to deal with camera options, and there aren't any changes here.
If you want a little more control, rather than leave the software to do as it
wants, you can change ISO, white balance, exposure, saturation and so on.
There's also the usual collection of simple effects (e.g., sepia, grayscale). There
aren't, by the way, any options for HDR or panorama shooting, which are
becoming increasingly standard in other operating systems. There's always the
option of "Lenses," which basically are installable software updates
that add extra functions to the camera. They can include visual translators (pointing
the camera at foreign text, etc.) and some simple photo tools. In reality,
they're mainly third-party apps, some of which are free, some are not. But at
least it means that the door for HDR and Panorama features isn't completely
closed.
A
photo taken by the HTC 8S
And what about the photos themselves, should
you ask? The best thing is to explore them yourself, and there's a gallery full
of samples just above. But, there are a few words we should say, that if it
gets a little cloudy outside, color quality seems to depend on the amount of
natural light, with images soon looking a little bit washed out. So, if you're
not a fan of the flash, then you'd better have a good hand. Otherwise, the
camera will punish you with noise or blurry photos. Even when we took some
photos of static objects in the middle of the day, the automatic exposure was
long enough to cause lighter edges on the objects we were aiming at. It meants pointing
the camera at something shone by bright light will reward you with some nice
and vivid photos.
Video recording has the same tendency in
such situations. While the camera is capable of recording 720p videos (at 8Mbps)
and results might look great on the phone screen, viewing them on a desktop or
some other, bigger screen can emphasize small flaws. Specifically, we noticed
the color warmth remarkably changed as we were pointing the camera around
different subjects. Not being ideal, but at the same time, for what most people
may want from this camera, it proves to be adequate. One other small complaint
more about the operating system rather than the phone – is that if you choose
to share your video via email, it will automatically compress it. In case you
want the original file (which we think you might want all the times), then you
might want to choose something like SkyDrive instead. The bonus is that once it
has been installed, it actually integrates very well into the camera roll
feature.
