HTC Announces the 8S with Windows Phone 8

The HTC 8S in Domino (Black & White)

Just after announcing the HTC 8X, a high-end Windows Phone from the famous smartphone OEM, the 8S comes hot on its heels for the more budget-conscious crowd.

The 8S, much like its bigger brother, features a whole new redesign for HTC in part due to the influence of the Windows Phone 8 Tile system. Featuring bold, two tone colors and a curved, rounded back, the 8S series certainly stands out from the crowd.

HTC 8S looking good

While the specs may not impress our enthusiast readers, the phones due still pack a nice punch and more importantly, a great experience.

The 8S features a 4” WVGA (800x480) display with slightly curved Gorilla Glass and Super LCD2. The phone weighs in at an ultra-light 113 grams, comes with Beats Audio (software, no amplifier) and a 5MP shooter. The phone does lack NFC and some more advanced features, but does have expandable memory on board for those who need a little extra space in addition to the 4GB of included storage. The device tops of with 512MB of RAM.

Featuring a 5MP FSI sensor for the rear camera

From our brief experience with it, we loved the color schemes and to be honest, we barely noticed the 800x480 screen, partially due to the Super LCD2 screen quality. Once again, for our enthusiast crowd, the 8X is the better choice, but don’t knock the 8S until you’ve seen it…it’s quite the looker and should do well for those look for a more casual smartphone experience.

Full specifications:

  • SIZE: 120.5 x 63 x 10.28mm
  • WEIGHT:  113 grams with battery
  • DISPLAY: super LCD display, with Gorilla® Glass for greater durability
  • SCREEN: 4-inch touch screen with WVGA (800x 480) resolution
  • CPU SPEED - Qualcomm® S4 1 GHz dual-core
  • PLATFORM - Windows® Phone 8
  • SIM –MicroSIM
  • MEMORY
  • Total storage: 4 GB
  • RAM: 512 MB
  • EXPANSION SLOT
  • MicroSD card
  • NETWORK - HSPA/WCDMA (Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz); GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

SENSORS

  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light sensor
  • G-Sensor
  • GPS - Internal GPS antenna with GLONASS

CONNECTIVITY

  • 3.5 mm stereo audio jack : plug any headphones with a standard-sized 3.5mm connector
  • Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR
  • Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz)

CAMERA

  • 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash
  • f/2.8 aperture and 35mm lens
  • 720p HD video recording with stereo sound
  • Dedicated camera button

SOUND ENHANCEMENT - Studio-quality sound with Beats Audio™ built in

BATTERY - Capacity: 1,700 mAh

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.