Smartphone supplier Clove has begun taking pre-orders on both the HTC 8X and HTC 8S, pricing them at £399.99 and £224.99 (inc. VAT) respectively.

HTC has so far remain tight-lipped as to what we might be expected to shell out for their flagship Windows Phone 8 handsets. Although Clove’s pricing may change the closer we get to the two handsets' November arrival - customers can pre-order them - it gives us an idea of how much we’d have to save as well as a comparison to a certain other hero phone revealed recently. 

Whereas the HTC 8X – the superior of the Taiwanese company's two phones – is priced just short of £400 SIM free, the iPhone 5 16GB is currently selling SIM free for £529 from Apple.

Measuring two phones which run on two entirely different operating systems is problematic from the off and ultimately comes down to personal preference, but in terms of specs, there’s little to choose between the two.

The HTC 8X also comes with 16GB of on-board memory and, like the iPhone 5, has an 8-megapixel camera, A-GPS and Wi-Fi but also has the added bonus of NFC.

What's more, in terms of screen size, the HTC 8X trumps the iPhone 5 with a 4.3-inch display compared to a four-inch. It’s also a 1280 x 720 resolution with 341ppi – meaning more pixels per inch than the iPhone 5.

As the crowds vying for a piece of the iPhone 5 show no signs of dying down, the (at present) cheaper HTC 8X certainly gives some food for thought.