When Peter Chou took the stage this morning at HTC’s press event in New York, we expected the new Android handsets the company is working on to come first. After all, Android has done so much for HTC to get the company where it is today. It was a bit of mild shock and surprise to see the conference begin with Windows Phone and listen to Chou maintain his company’s dedication to the platform upon announcing two new handsets. The high end HTC 8X and the mid-range HTC 8S. The phones have great specs on them and will most likely be serious contenders for the crown jewel of the Windows Phone 8 launch, but they look awful familiar.

It’s almost as if the HTC 8X could be the Lumia 920’s long lost cousin. The 8X is a bit more round than the Lumia 920 on all accounts, but looking at the two it seems like HTC feels as though getting somewhere with Windows Phone 8 means hedging your bets on what Nokia–Microsoft’s darling–is doing. The first generation Windows Phone devices, the Trophy, Titan/Titan II and others looked physically nothing like the Lumia series. However, now that Nokia has debuted their Windows Phone deck and laid the cards on the table, we’re seeing a remarkably similar hand from HTC in the name of its X series.

What do you guys think?