Speed Comparison! HTC 8X, HTC Titan II! Video

Logically, and numerically, the jump from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8 infers and creates an expectation of bigger and better. On the surface, Microsoft have been able to keep the user interface very familiar, and introduced a lot of user experience features that have been warmly welcomed. Namely the use of the whole display, and the three tile sizes. Cosmetically, there is an obvious change, for the better.

Underlying that though, Windows phone 8 is a new operating system, it’s core is less like it was and more like Windows 8, and while both are relatively new, we should see the benefits of the merger rather quickly. While there is some common code shared between WP7 and WP8, the differences start to become obvious when you compare the two in real-time.

Besides the fact that Windows phone 8 minimum hardware specifications, require beefier hardware, it’s the combination of it, and compliance with new API’s, that maximise performance of apps on the new OS. It becomes really obvious when running native apps, like mail, people and the Me app, but even apps that have not been updated from their Windows Phone 7 versions yet, still run faster on the new OS. While I would call this observational and not a review as such, after a week of using a WP8 device, there are things that are just obvious. Speed is the thing, although you might be focused on customisation, the balance between glance and go, and opening apps has been minimised, having a never-ending scroll of the start screen is definitely a thing of the past.

I have a lot of apps that I use, but as for info that I want constantly, it barely runs off of the start screen, actually takes less than two screens, and I could cut that more.

While the back-end has been enhanced, the step up from 7 to 8 has been kept rather simple, if you didn’t use all the extras before, you will not miss them now. If you did, well they have gotten better, but the proof is in the pudding. Direct comparisons, I could tell you it’s fantastic, but you hit a bug and you hate it. SO I thought video. Sorry for the quality, taken on the HD7, of two more hardware advanced phones, but you will get the idea.