Taiwanese manufacturer HTC has unveiled its latest smartphones, powered by the Windows Phone 8 platform.
"The HTC team built this hardware from the ground up to really showcase the Windows Phone software," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said.
The top-flight 8X features a 4.3-inch, 720p touchscreen and is powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S4 chip, clocked at 1.5Ghz. Additionally, the phone has 1GB of RAM and 16GBs of non-expandable storage.
The HTC 8X features the same eight-megapixel camera as the HTC One X, while the front-facing camera has a 2.1MP sensor capable of 1080p recording.
The lower-spec HTC 8S has a 4-inch 480x800 touchscreen, dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor rated at 1Ghz and a five-megapixel camera. Much like the Lumia 820, the 8S also has a microSD slot.
The smartphones will be available for MTN and Vodacom in the first week of November, HTC South Africa said.
The handsets come just a week after iPhone 5 launch, with HTC hoping that its smartphone can take on Apple's effort.
However, HTC isn't the only Windows Phone manufacturer looking to take on Apple, as Nokia's new Lumia 820 and 920 handsets were also unveiled in recent weeks.
Additionally, long-time Windows Phone manufacturer Samsung has also unveiled its own Windows Phone, the Ativ S.
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