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I'm considering dropping my iPhone when my contract ends in favour of an HTC 8X Windows 8 phone.

Does anybody use one of these please? If so what are your 'real world' experiences with it?

Thanks in advance for any help

I had the windows 7 phone on the HTC HD7 until September and it as ghastly.

There are little to no apps, and what apps there are were expensive (£3.95 for Angry Birds) The software was buggy, with one update meaning that pressing the phone icon did nothing, another update meant that you couldn't connect with ZUNE, the software you have to use for media and hence back up images etc to your HDD. As a result, when it died upon getting back from Germany, I'd lost pretty much everything from my year abroad. A friend who was in Spain for the same year also lost everything and he had the same phone as I.

They also have a wonderful skill for turning themselves off.

On the upside, the screen was beautiful and I used to watch films when travelling. The battery life was better than my current Sony and the phone had a wick little stand that meant you didn't have to hold the phone when watching anything.

I understand that for its deployment on the Lumia phones it has been considerably altered, and maybe with 8 they improved them. I however wouldn't take the risk and haven't found Android to be much better (Sony Xperia P)

From now on, I'd strongly advise anyone to stick or go to Apple.

While app support may be an issue for some (it depends what you use I guess) the Nokia implementation of windows phone is now very good. Initially mine had some battery life issues, but a firmware update fixed that. Now it just works!

Unfortunately, though, if other implementations are as bad as it seems, windows phone won't make it as stories like Jakes will prevail.

The Samsung s3 and note 2 are an excellent contender to the iPhone! They run android though, but maybe worth a look before you buy anything. I wouldn't go back to Apple after getting the Note2. No experience of the windows phone I'm afraid.

I've just had the chance of using the HTC 8X all day today courtesy of one of my students.

I have to say that the iPhone is going in the bin

I saw on the Bloomberg 10 hours ago that HTC posted its lowest profits since 2004 and comment was that it was due to a lack of new models. If your happy with HTC then thats ok as it is a preference. I would go for Apple or Samsung technology.

I use an iPhone so do take my bias into account. I have a friend who has a Samsung the latest and she is very happy with it.

Gate Keeper wrote:I use an iPhone so do take my bias into account.

Me too Phil, at the moment. I guess I'm reacting against the 'fanboy' image anything by Apple seems to suggest.

For example, when we take a lecture break, I notice the bulk of my students pull out their iPhone 4 or 5 and they look like clones of each other

For a start, I won't feel deprived if I don't have 'Angry Birds' on the 8x (whatever that might be) because most of the time at work my phone acts as a wifi hotspot, so the deal 3 have offered me again this year comes into account as well for my choice of phone.

Have you tried to get "all you can eat" data and even more difficult, free tethering recently?

The iPhone 4 is / was a perfectly usable phone but I've also always thought negatively of the way Apple try to control what you do with your phone and what goes on it etc. iTunes is a hateful encumbrance and imposition on my PC.

Linking with my (now) Windows 8 PCs is something I want to explore as well.

Maybe I'll get an iPhone 6 in due course