The release of Windows Phone 8, and all the associated products and gadgets therein, has always seemed like a long way away, but with October now upon us, we're just a couple of weeks away from the big launch, and if you've been looking forward to owning one of the first Windows Phone 8 handsets, your wait is almost over. Today, the HTC 8X has been spotted in the wild - just a week after the highly-anticipated Lumia 920 was also spotted out and about - and the world gets its first glimpse at the Taiwanese company's Windows Phone 8 effort courtesy of some testing done on the streets of San Francisco.
Nokia’s Lumia 920 scored a lot of negative press from the technology blogosphere when it was discovered that the demo videos and photos they had shown at their announcement event were actually taken using professional DSLR cameras to “simulate” the smartphone’s advanced optical features.
Although the blogosphere has been dominated almost entirely with reports and coverage of Apple's iPhone 5, it's important to remember that the Cupertino company's sixth flagship device is just one of many new and exciting smartphones releasing this Fall. The Windows Phone 8 platform will be hoping to make a significant impression on a market dominated by iOS and Android, and in terms of Windows Phone 8 handsets, the Nokia Lumia 920 is the pick of the bunch.
The smartphone industry is no stranger to legal wranglings, with Apple and Samsung duking it out in the courts in a very high-profile battle over certain patent infringements. Samsung has already been ordered to pay Apple more than $1 billion in damages after being found to infringe upon various Apple held patents, but that doesn't seem to be enough as Apple is seeking to extort an additional $707 million from the Korean electronics giants. If recent reports are true, then it looks like Nokia and HTC could be heading for their own legal battle.
HTC has made its 8X and and 8S Windows Phone announcement video available to stream online as of right now. We love to see new technology announced here at Redmond Pie, and we love to watch it happen in glorious, streaming video. If we can't see it live though, just seeing it at all is a bonus. That's why we like to see companies release their own videos after announcing their products, and that's exactly what HTC has done today.
As you are almost certainly aware by now, the brand-new iPhone 5 is releasing tomorrow, and with consumers already queuing in their droves to be among the first to get their hands on the device, rivaling companies are queuing up to take a pop at Apple's flagship.
There is no doubt about the fact that Nokia's recently announced Lumia 920 is going to make a serious splash in the smartphone market when it is eventually released to the public. The gorgeous design and inclusion of Windows Phone 8 makes it a very attractive prospect for those looking to acquire a new device, and that is before you even start to take into account the addition of native Augmented Reality features and fantastic little inclusions like wireless charging based on the Qi Standard.
The iPhone 5 is a hotly anticipated device, with pre-orders hitting the 2 million mark in the first 24 hours of launch, it is all set to be the most sought-after device for this holiday season. Although the announcement of the iPhone 5 brought about quite a bit of criticism from certain people who wanted Apple to introduce an all-new design for the device, a company spokeswoman has already claimed that the interest in the new iPhone is "incredible".
Earlier, we brought you the ultimate battle of the two most popular smartphone vendors and their flagship devices. Having assessed the iPhone 5 of Apple and Samsung's Galaxy S III, we found both to be technically advanced, and the differences between the two - such as screen and device size - are only important if one prefers a large display, or a smaller one.
When it comes to taking digital images, the marketing ploy of many vendors is to simply quote the number of megapixels. Whilst this is obviously an important factor, there are many other prerequisites of a decent quality photo being taken, and although by no means the best, Apple's iPhone certainly doesn't perform too badly.
