Here's my fourth attempt to replace my N900. Tried N9, Iphone 4s, Galaxy S3.....next up to bat is the HTC 8x. I'm not really trying to provide a review, but just some thoughts I had--

So today is day 2 with the phone and already I'm questioning whether I'll keep it or not. Problem is, if I don't keep it, what do I get next?

Day 2 impressions:
1) Feels a lot of like the N9...not necessarily the OS, but the phone itself. Screen looks similar and just the feel of the hardware. If it had Nokia branding instead of HTC branding, I'd believe it.

2) OS is NOTHING like Windows 8. I have a Microsoft Surface and really like Windows RT. After reading that Win 8 and Win Phone 8 are based on the same code, I figured the phone would just be a more limited version of WinRT...wrong! The only thing even close to in common is the start screen. Apps are different, UI different, settings different..absolutely nothing in common that I can find.

3) Battery life is lacking. It's probably fine for a casual user, but doesn't QUITE last a day with me. Of course it's only been 2 days, but same result both days. The N900 didn't last long enough for me either, until I made a dual-scud setup.

4) No tethering without adding it to my plan...$15/mo extra for something I could do on the N900 for free...bah!

5) No call recording app. This is a huge inconvenience. Now I have to take notes in real-time when talking to people. Before I could just ask questions and participate in conversation and just refer back later if I needed to "remember" any info to my recordings.

6) Everything is so FAST compared to the N900...that's probably the primary reason I'm considering keeping it. Also, like the N9, the screen and transitions look great. Browser is extremely fast and no real complaints other than everything wanting to show you the mobile web page version despite the user agent setting in IE. 16:9 screen makes landscape browsing questionably useful.

7) No multitasking, at least not like the N900. Very disappointing, especially because of what I've read about Windows Phone's multitasking capability. What they mean is that CERTAIN apps can run in the background and everything else can be frozen in its current state and resume when you switch back. THAT'S NOT MULTITASKING!

8) No way to quickly exit apps from the task manager. Microsoft's argument is that because apps are frozen, they don't consume CPU cycles, so there's no reason to close them. Sure...but then you have 6 or 7 windows open in task manager to sort through rather than just the 2-3 apps you're really using. The only way to exit apps is to switch to the app and hit the "back" key...and that's further complicated if the "back" key is used within the app.

9) No way to disable threaded conversations in e-mail. Sure, I know..."everyone" wants their conversations to be threaded. I don't. I want to see messages in the order they came in. I'm out of luck.

10) Bing is basically useless...and although there is a Google app you can manually launch, everything defaults to using Bing and you can't change it. Maybe some people have good luck with Bing, but in the several times it's come up over the last 2 days, the results are pretty much completely useless.

11) Where is the native IM support? Why do I have to use IM+ or some other third party solution that's not well integrated?