At the Windows Phone 8 launch event in San Francisco in late October, Microsoft handed out Windows Phones, the HTC 8x, to everyone in attendance. As much as we like the 8x, we think the Nokia experience is something we need to keep an eye on, and we picked up a Nokia 920, with the idea that we’d give away the 8x to one of our readers.
Before we get into specifics of how you can come away with a new Windows Phone, a couple of details: The phone is (very lightly) used, but we’ll pack it back up in its original box. It’s also (as it says on the box), a “Pre-Production Unit”, although it’s running the final version of Windows Phone 8 just fine.
It’s also locked to AT&T, and will come without a SIM card – it’s apparently pretty easy to unlock the phone for a fairly nominal fee (Bing is your friend), but unless you’re in the US on AT&T, we don’t make any promises that you’ll be able to use the phone as anything more than just a nice looking MP3 player 
. We’re not giving away any phone contracts, getting connected to a mobile provider is totally and entirely up to you (as is unlocking it if you’re not on AT&T)– we’re just giving away the phone hardware.
We also reserve any and all rights in deciding who gets the phone – we’re going to take our little “contest” seriously, but if we get a crapload of contest professionals spamming us, or if we spot what we think to be some kind of a scam, for example, we may have to amend the rules as we see fit. Our decision is final, and rests solely with us.
So, on to the “rules”. We want to know what you think of Windows Phone, and why you want one. So in a short (~100 words) email, to 8x@liveside.net, tell us “Why I want a Windows Phone” (include that in the subject line). What intrigues you about Microsoft’s mobile strategy? What makes Windows Phone great (or not so great, be honest!). How will having a Windows Phone change your life?
Get creative (and concise!), and tell us “Why I want a Windows Phone”, and email your responses to 8x@liveside.net net by the end of the day, Wednesday December 12th at 11:59pmt PST (GMT –8). We’ll pick a winner and ship it out on Friday December 14th, hopefully in time for Christmas (although no guarantees there, either)
We’d like to share some of your responses, even if you don’t win, so any responses you email in become our property, and by entering you give us the right to publish your response.
You will need to respond using an email address where we can get in touch with you to get an address to send the phone (we’ll take care of the shipping costs), and please don’t spam us with multiple copies of a response from different email accounts, we’ll be picking the winner by hand, and having to wade through a bunch of copycat responses is only going to piss us off and lessen your chance of winning.
To make it a bit more official, we’ve set up a page with all the rules. Good luck, and looking forward to reading your responses!