Side by Side Comparison of: HTC vs Tech 21 vs BLU

What a great phone! Came brand new and wrapped perfect like we just got it from the store! My grandfather didn't want a new high tech phone and we wanted to get him something he could easily understand. After reading the reviews for this item I was quickly drawn in that this would be perfect for him. It's very self explanatory he is having the best time learning it. On the screen everything it lacked with pictures which makes it easy for him to find anything! Great phone and even greater service ordering from these guys!!

Turned out very well.... Nice build quality, feels great in the hand... I gave it to my teenage sister and I'm not worried about it breaking if she drops it or does God knows what else with it. In my experience it never lags even though it only cost $175. Was able to update it to Windows phone 8.1 by signing up as a developer (don't actually plan to develop anything... I just wanted to get the swipe keyboard and the voice recognition software updates... It's free) which I highly recommend if only for the much improved keyboard. Overall I highly recommend this as a decent sub-$200 phone.

Love Windows 8 phones. This is a replacement for my wife's damaged phone. We each have the HTC 8X and love it. My wife keeps up to date with her Facebook contacts and we always know the weather. There are many other apps but we don't really use many of them. As a phone it works great and as a internet hot spot it serves us well. We have the new 10G plan and we tether our computers for internet access.As RVing volunteers we travel most of the country. ATT is available in most of the areas we work, many being remotely located. The ATT plan and the HTC phone is a great combination.

I got this Unlocked GSM version of the HTC Windows 8x Phone a month ago and it is great. I got it so I could get off contract service with Net10 wireless. It works perfectly. I really like windows 8 os but I am also coming from a basic phone so I was coming into the smart phone world unbiased. One of the big complaints about Windows 8 phones is that they don't have a proper or easy to use contacts list (the people hub is a bit confusing at first and not very efficient way to call your contacts), but that problem is easily fixed with a number of different contacts apps you can get for free at the windows app store. The camera is great. And the price made it the best deal I could find for a smart phone.

Most important part of this review -- Windows Phone 8 is light years better than Windows 7.8. It is worth every penny to upgrade. Just about every feature you wish you had on the Windows Phone 7 (any version) can be found on Windows Phone 8. I've been using Windows 7 phones for over 3 years, and the difference is noticeable and instant. If you're considering the switch, do it now.The HTC 8x is a great phone. My only complaint is like other people say -- the buttons are a little small, and blend in with the casing a little too much. Other than that... no problems or complaints at all!One quick note -- if you're upgrading from an older phone, you may have a larger SIM card than this phone requires. If that's the case, just go to any AT&T store, and they'll get you set up with a new SIM card free of charge. Takes about 5 minutes, very easy to do.

I was hunting for a new phone when I moved back to the US and couldn't believe what people are paying for their contracts. I got this phone unlocked and threw a TMobile pay-as-you-go SIM card for a $100 bucks., it works perfect for me. I don't need to update Facebook every 5 minutes and there is enough free wifi around that I can get Internet pretty much anywhere anyway. As far as the phone itself goes, I thought I was going to have trouble liking win8 after being in an iPhone the last 4 years, but I actually like it better than my old iPhone. There aren't as many apps out there yet, but there are a lot of good ones and I imagine more are being worked on and being released often. Bye for now iPhone and expensive contracts, I'm 100% satisfied.

I bought the phone two years ago as a developer platform. I decided to activate it through AT&T with a GoPhone sim card I also bought from Amazon. AT&T stated the phone was black listed and could not be activated. Be careful when you buy an unlocked phone. It's a good developer platform but useless as a phone. Four star for the phone minus one for the seller.

I like this phone because the face is large and I can easily see all the apps and messages. It is nice you can pin exactly what apps you want to the start menu (and can get the rest of the apps on another screen if you need them. The camera is a little cumbersome in its use (I am still not comfortable using it), but the photos are good. It is an unlocked phone, but there are many apps that can only be used with AT&T. Not a problems for me because most of these apps cost additional money and I would not use them anyway. Good phone for the money.

Sorry folks. Unlike the Verizon version of this phone, the AT&T model is NOT upgradeable to 8.1, confirmed by a rep at HTC today on their chat line: [...] . I'm sending mine back for something different. The rep didn't know about making the leap to Windows 10, since it hasn't been released yet.Update 2-26: Well, once I unwrapped the phone, it was too gorgeous to send back. Fits well in the hand, lightweight, high screen resolution, and WP8 is much nicer than my old Trophy. Worked fine once I reset the password to my hotmail account & found the right server setting (blu402-m.hotmail.com). Plenty of great apps including 6tag for Instagram. Found an OtterBox case on Amazon that fits perfectly for $12. Figure I'll keep this for 2 years, then leapfrog over 8.1 directly to WP10.

Pretty much see the review by Alaina T on April 18, 2013. It covers everything I'd have to say. A few points that stand out for me as this is my first real smart phone.Pro:Nice and thin, have not had a problem fitting this in any of my pockets.I don't use any sort of screen protector nor skin/case, yet the phone is still looking good after 8 months.(Very little screen scratch caused by carelessly putting in pocket with key ring)While it is branding AT&T, it is unlocked and I am using it with MetroPCS, which is part of the T-Mobile network.(Can't go wrong with $70 flat fee for 2 phones, 500MB data, unlimited talk/text). Good 4GLTE signal in Houston.Camera takes decent pictures, but doesn't compare to newer/higher end phones like HTC One.Con:Other than those listed by Alaina, 8GB storage just isn't good enough. 7.22GB is actual amount on phone. System takes 2.24GB, apps+games is another 2.58GB. That leaves just 2.5GB for pictures, videos, music, documents and email. If I start to use my camera for videos, I quickly run out of room and have to dump my files to my computer.(Windows 8 automatic backup to cloud used to work fine until latest update)

This was my son's first Windows Phone, so it did take some getting used to, but he has enjoyed it and I like tge windows, My Family option where I can monitor his activities. It's a sleek phone & easy for him to keep in his pocket without bulkiness. His last name is Blue, so he personally loves the color as well.

This phone is just as beautiful as the picture shows it to be.I cant comment yet about how it operates because I havent been able to use it as yet because my current sim card cannot fit the slot in the phone, so I have to buy a new sim.One concern I have is that the pkg shows the phone as locked whereas the details had said it was unlocked which I expect it to be. Once I buy my new sim card I will know for sure about that.

did not like it that much could not download apps.like whatsapp.

pros- slim phone, easy to handle with one hand- the windows interface is user friendly- fairly durable, made of good grip materialcons- the screen wraps to the edge, so if you at all, the screen cracks- because of the wrapped screen, it's more expensive to replace the screen than the entire phone- gets stuck in airplane mode and you cannot fix this - this happen to me after a few years and there is absolutely no way to fix this - I ended up switching to Galaxy S6

Where do i begin, first i bought two of these (one for me and the other for my husband) and upon receiving then decided to turn them on and go through the phones to make sure they were working (as i live in the Bahamas). There were several updates that needed to be done with regards to the phone that I deemed 'my phone', and so i went through the motions of installing and updating them. There was however an update for the phone to upgrade from windows 8 to 8.1 and i thought nothing of it and started to process for it. Upon completion of the update and reboot the phone would not come back on, i was stunned and stressed (as it would cost me a whole lot more money to send the phone back because of my location). I began googling my options and even contacted htc online chat help services-but because the phone was dead and unresponsive not to mention i couldn't access the phone information for the tech i felt totally lost. I then proceeded to do the update on the other phone thinking that phone was one in a million and i soon found out i was wrong. I was now without two phones and no options in sight. But thank goodness i had to make an emergency trip to usa where i had arranged to receive two replacement phones and return the other two phones. NOW the hell really starts i arrived and went out for a short period only to return to find out that one of the phones was attempted to be delivered but the delivery personal didn't ring the bell where he would be let in, now i was really worried as i was leaving in a few days and the delivery wasn't gonna be retried till the day of my departure. I received the other phone just (even though we again weren't home-the delivery guy rang the bell). To the end i have ONE phone with the same update constantly popping and now having to try make arrangements for two other phones because in not liking it much. To have to go through all of that a still have uncertainty is total disappointing. The phone is ok but not worth the headache, its more i think ok for a young teen who has probably countless more cellphones in their future - not an adult on a budget looking for something that will last a GOOD while.I would like to point out that the amazon customer services online chat team WERE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING......through it i was compensated and helped over and over and over and over lol and over and for ever time treated with respect.

ultimately an unsatisfying experience, when coming from an iPhone (even an older one like the iPhone 4) or android. Too limiting with the customizations available. not enough memory (oh and didn't understand that this phone did not support SIM card for expansion, so a paltry 8GB was all you had and more than half went to the OS), too hard to figure out your way around, and free apps in other ecosystems not supported. We also get issues with Wi-Fi not connecting, the synchronization has been a bit torturous, and the beginning was difficult trying to transfer names, and finding that all phones numbers transferred incorrectly, and only the area code was dialing from the contact page, which meant you had to memorize the number to call out or reset numbers in the contact. YOu also have an issue with some carriers not rolling out Windows Phone 8.1 software, so it was even more limited till we took the chance to update to 8.1 developers version. On the positive side, it does have a nice screen, and cortana seems to work when there is little background noise pretty well.

So I bought this phone because my Galaxy S3 decided to crash on me three months before I am due for an upgrade. I have had this phone for four days now so I may do another update to this review later. There are a few good things about the phone that I do like. I do like the Windows tiles. They make things easy to navigate. The phone itself is pretty easy to figure out. I have only had droids in the past and I was able to figure everything out pretty quickly. I had AT&T before and the phone recognized my sim card right away. There are a few things about the phone that I don't like. I can't seem to change the keyboard style. I use patterns for my passwords. For example, I may use the letter S pattern starting at the number 5 on a standard keyboard. The keyboard on the phone is not like a standard keyboard so now I have to remember the letters and numbers for my passwords instead of just the pattern for the letter S starting at the number 5 on a standard keyboard. This is not a show stopper but somewhat annoying to me. With my S3 I could change the keyboard to several different types. There is no expandable memory. Again, this is not a show stopper since I will only use this phone until I can get the S5, but still you would think that HTC would have built this feature into the phone. The battery life is very short if you use the phone. I had to recharge the phone about halfway through the day with moderate use and you cant buy an extended battery. This is a pain. I had an expanded battery for my S3 and I could go a couple of days without having to charge it if I needed to. I will be chained to my charger for the foreseeable future, oh well.Ok, I can deal with all of that, but my biggest problem with the phone is there is no Amazon cloud player app. My wife, and two teenagers share the same taste in music and we use one account for all of our music and reading. Everyone in the family buys music and books from Amazon and we all have access to it (I pay for everything LOL). Anyway, now I have to sign up with X-box music and I don't have access to Amazon's cloud player. This is a show stopper for me and even if I loved everything else about the phone, I would not be able to continue with a Windows phone for this reason. Hopefully they will make an App for Amazon's cloud player.There is one last thing that I can think of that bothers me about the phone. I did download Amazon's kindle and it works flawlessly with this phone, but I cannot make the words bigger. I can make them bigger, but not big enough for me to still read without glasses. With my S3, I could make the words very big. This is a minor annoyance really because I am always leaving my glasses at work because I never really need them at home.Oh, there is one more thing that is irritating. When watching videos, you cannot move the progress bar to the part of the video you want to watch, you have to click the fast forward button a number of times until you get to where you want to be. This is very annoying. My son did find a YouTube app that will let you have access to a progress bar, so there is a workaround for this problem at least for YouTube videos.In summary, this phone will work for now. I can do basic texting, e-mail, and Internet surfing, but I can't wait to get back to a Galaxy phone.

If you want a good Windows phone, go with the Nokia Lumia. This phone is lacks basic apps like the Nokia camera and many others. The camera on this phone isn't good at all, coming from a Lumia 920 and Lumia 1020 owner. Nokia has better phones to me.

This phone was awaful. I hate windows 8. Difficult to use. Sold it two weeks after I purchased it

Screw went black after 6 months. Arrived quickly.

I liked the phone a lot but unfortunately I could not sign in to my Microsoft accout. I took the phone to a microsoft store and they worked on it for 2 hours and couldn't fix it. So they gave me another phone and took my HTC. So after reading this you make the decision if you want to buy it or not.

Love the hardware, hate the fact that it's only going to be Windows 8. After conversing with all the players, and dealing with all the finger pointing, it appears AT&T will only update the Nokia line. HTC sent the 8.1 code to AT&T, and as far as I can tell, they just flushed it. The hardware is so nice, it's a shame HTC and AT&T can't get it together to upgrade the OS. I think without the updates, I'd prefer a blu WinHD. My daughter has no idea how it happened, but her screen (HTC 8x) is all scratched, so much for the corning glass.... Make sure you get protection if you ever set it down. Also, with the speaker on the back of this phone, the volume isn't what it should be when it rings. The camera is OK, but gets better with the additional lens apps you can download. With a steady hand, you can take some nice pics. The flash, on the other hand, is very weak. All said and done, it's a great build with a nice price, but starting out outdated, and staying there isn't for me. I doubt the Windows 10 upgrade is even in the cards! Oh Well, live and learn.UPDATE: Talked with AT&T today. Sounds like they may be releasing the 8.1 updates at some point. Also, reading positive things about Win 10. They actually opened a case for me today to update the phones since there seemed to just be a distribution problem on the network. I'll update my review if the status changes. With 8.1 update this phone is 5 stars.UPDATE 2: WRONG WRONG WRONG.... AT&T LIED, there is no plan for 8.1 update for this phone according to HTC. ALSO, HTC also lied about the updates. AT&T had the nerve to tell me the updates were going to be distributed soon (to shut me up). NOW, HTC has a link on their site that says the HTC 8X will NOT be upgraded to 8.1 (though no mention of 10, I doubt it will be considered)SO MY FINAL REVIEW is this.... Don't buy it. This phone is way outdated, and will not be supported by AT&T or HTC. Maybe as a $25 replacement or temporary phone, but other than that, run.... it's not worth it! From this experience I learned my lesson, NEVER BUY ANOTHER HTC, and NEVER BELIEVE AT&T!

Phone was bought as a used/refurbished. Unfortunately it does not stay connected to networks wifi/mobile and reboots frequently. Nice form factor and features but hardware failures are nothing short of annoying...

This phone went from 5 stars to 2 because of reliability issues.I received this refurbished HTC 8X WP8 from Amazon Ware House deals and DAC Enterprises in April 2014. The phone was in like new condition and operated perfect for 11 months, then it started restarting while in use, either texting or during a phone call. Checking the Internet I found that many other people have this as a common problem and is associated with the SIM area of the phone. People tried shimming the SIM card with "Scotch" tape, I tried that and was not a fix. Replacing the SIM from ATT, that helped for about 3 months.Note that this phone can not be upgraded to WP8.1 which is a desired upgrade that all "Nokia" WP 8 phones receive.This is a business phone and is to annoying to deal with and so buying another phone. It's a shame because it has a good camera and is a great phone when it works properly.

I didn't want to give a star but I had to don't know why. I got this phone about 2 week's ago and the screen is going White on it I have a HTC phone I love it but the HTC Windows phone is junk so learn from my mistake don't get this phone and the seller will not get back to you so I guess I have a brand new phone that is junk. So don't get this phone if you do you will have a piece of junk to

Phone is great seller disappointing! This was bought brand new to replace the same model that I loved & had for almost 2 years. Unfortunately after a little over 1 month the phone suddenly dies, completely... no charge light or anything. I called Amazon and was told to contact USA Wireless LLC since the return time was up one week ago. They did however check the manufacturers warranty against the s/n# & let me know they can see the battery was up for replacement last year. How was I supposed to know this? The whole point of buying a new phone is so you don't have such issues and expect it to work for at least a year not month. FYI USA Wireless LLC does not have any phone numbers, only email address which I used to send a message about my situation but no reply so far...its been a week & I need a phone!!!!!

I got it today and on the screen where the time and weather are together it told celsius weather not farenheit. There was no setting to change it either. It was not in a HTC box with original manual. It came in a plastic like box with a sheet of paper instructions. I am replacing this phone thanks to Amazon with another one and I hope it is right this time. Well I got the replacement and was in the settings getting everything set and then I got to the updates. As soon as I clicked to down the update phone went down like a virus got into it and crashed it. There were cogs showing going around and around and a sad face popped up like I just f...d up your phone. So I sent it back for a refund and will not get another windows phone again.

This is day 2 of having the phone and I noticed a couple of things. One, it does not send or receive pictures, and 2. I decided to run the updates. After running the updates, my phone is completely blank, there is nothing displayed on the screen. I know it is on because this morning (day 3) I decided to plug it into my computer. As I plug it in, the computer acknowledges that a USB port has been set up. I press the on and off button located on the top of the phone and my computer makes that acknowledgement noise again.I feel like I just spend a lot of money on something that does not work, I will be returning this phone to be reimbursed.

I actually loved the phone--at least for the two days that it worked. Phone suddenly froze and then displayed an error message. It would not turn off or on, and then it became exceedingly hot to touch. I am really worried about even returning it in the mail!

Worst product ever, company difficult to work with. The phone had a rebooting problem where it was not functioning. After the company finally "fixed" it, it still did not work. Having a lot of trouble getting my money back. Do not buy!!