The main shortcoming with Windows Phone 8.1.1 on the One M8 is its less consistent day-to-day experience. And the space-stealing softkeys at the bottom of the display can be hidden with the tap of a button. Cortana is a smarter voice assistant than ever, striking a nice balance between the utility of Google Now and the personality of Siri. But we’re excited that the new software includes things like Action Center and start screen folders, both of which are executed with Microsoft’s usual visual flair. We’re still sad to see Microsoft compromise some of the clean look and feel of its original vision, and annoyed at the occasional bugs that the company has yet to iron out.
Even after all these years, the HTC/Microsoft combination is still a potent one.Īs for Windows Phone itself, most of our impressions from our review of the 8.1 Developer Preview remain unchanged. With its new customizable start screen and the minimalist Modern design language, Windows Phone 8.1.1 looks like it was made specifically for the One M8. While we’re on the subject of aesthetics: we’ve seldom seen a hardware/software pairing that looks as good as the match HTC and Microsoft have made here. Meanwhile, HTC refined its efforts on the Android platform, winning no small amount of praise for its work on the One X, One (M7) and One M8 models – and the latter earned a very high score in our review from the spring. HTC would release only three smartphone models for Windows Phone 8 in 2012-2013, a stark contrast to the eight devices it brought to market for Windows Phone 7. HTC’s efforts with the new Windows Phone 7 were at first strong and nearly as varied as they were in the Windows Mobile days … but the platform’s sluggish adoption rate and HTC’s flagging financials quickly put a damper on its efforts. Then came the great Windows reboot of 2010, wherein Microsoft completely reinvented its mobile platform to better compete with iOS and Android. There was a time when the name “HTC” was synonymous with “Windows Mobile.” The two were so intertwined during the latter half of the last decade that, no matter what form factor or Windows version you needed, you could find an HTC-badged smartphone to suit you.
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