State of the HTC 8x and its HORRIBLE battery

[philxor]

Hey, I just wanted to share my battery problems and the solution that worked for me. First, no tweaks had any effect on my horrible battery life. I have had my Htc 8x for a week now. I wouldnt even use the phone and it was dropping 15% an hour and getting hot in my pocket.

I use an exchange server, 6 pop email accounts and one gmail account, the same way I did on my htc trophy wp7 which worked great.

Other message boards hinted at gmail. That was it. Imap gmail account even only syncing email was killing my battery. I instead set up my gmail as an outlook account which forces it away from imap to pop. Use m.google.com as the server.

Since then my battery has been outstanding. I love this phone again. Hope this helps a few of you struggling.

I have two Gmail accounts setup to sync everything and push messages as they arrive, using IMAP, and I do not have any battery issues.

 

[Pikezer1337]

Im getting six hours with absolutely everything turned off. I'm loving the phone and Windows Phone 8 both but this is unacceptable, hopefully this gets fixed but if not then there's no way I can do this.

 

[beachhoppr]

It seems deleting Skype has made a HUGE difference!
Sent from my Windows Phone 8X by HTC using Board Express

 

[Workbook89]

my battery is doing 24 hours moderate use... which is ok

I got mine on Monday, and this has been my experience thus far as well.

 

[beachhoppr]

Well removing Skype won't give me 24 hrs but I might get 15 with moderate usage. Better than the 4 I was getting
Sent from my Windows Phone 8X by HTC using Board Express

 

[Joelist]

I have Skype installed and running and am getting superb battery life - used about 21% of the charge in a 6 hour period. And yes it charged up to 100%.

 

[Grumpydev]

I've done a factory reset on mine, installed nothing, and setup only a single email account - I'll see how it gets on today, but it's already dropped 8% in an hour just sat there doing nothing - no emails coming in, no messages, no music playing, no nothing. If more people could post their firmware versions and battery stats it would be useful (Settings, About, More Information).

 

[philxor]

I am using firmware version 10012.502 on ATT.

Right now I have 3 accounts being synced, all set to download email as it comes. I have everything turned on except for NFC, so BT, location services, etc. are always turned on. I have a few live tiles updating such as CNN, Amazing weather, battery level, etc.

Previously rebooting the phone seemed to improve my battery life and things started to degrade after a few days so I did the same test. The first screenshot is from last night, I fully charged the phone up until I was done using it for the night and then just let it sit overnight. The time period you see the battery dropping covers roughly 12 hours. So it dropped 56% in a span of 12 hours while not in use. It's constant so it's draining about 4.7% of battery per hour.



I was a bit disappointed and rebooting the phone seemed to help before so I decided to do it again. So I just turned the phone off and back on, then charged it to 100% and once it was fully charged let it sit for a few hours. As you can see this time around it only drained 6% in around 3 hours. This is with the exact same settings.

 

[philxor]

I have looked around at various reviews and they reference getting like 50 hours of pure standby time. I'm not really getting anywhere near that except when restarting the phone and not doing anything. I think some background processes just keep running once they are started. Doesn't matter if I turn off anything or not.

 

[Skeet1981]

It does make a huge difference it seems, for me anyway, weather your charging from the mains or a computer. Charged from my xbox overnight the other day and the battery drained a lot faster than when from the mains.

Also found after a couple of complete drains and full recharges the battery improved vastly. It seems also to last longer from a full charge than from charging it from say 50%-full.

 

[jaj324]

I use mine all day and charge it all night. No problems. No reboots.
Sent from my PM23300 using Board Express

 

[jlangner]

Yep, np here either. I easily get over 12 hours moderate use.

 

[gmfeld]

I am using firmware version 10012.502 on ATT.

Right now I have 3 accounts being synced, all set to download email as it comes. I have everything turned on except for NFC, so BT, location services, etc. are always turned on. I have a few live tiles updating such as CNN, Amazing weather, battery level, etc.

Previously rebooting the phone seemed to improve my battery life and things started to degrade after a few days so I did the same test. The first screenshot is from last night, I fully charged the phone up until I was done using it for the night and then just let it sit overnight. The time period you see the battery dropping covers roughly 12 hours. So it dropped 56% in a span of 12 hours while not in use. It's constant so it's draining about 4.7% of battery per hour.

View attachment 23482

I was a bit disappointed and rebooting the phone seemed to help before so I decided to do it again. So I just turned the phone off and back on, then charged it to 100% and once it was fully charged let it sit for a few hours. As you can see this time around it only drained 6% in around 3 hours. This is with the exact same settings.

View attachment 23483

How to explain the difference?

 

[gmfeld]

Does anyone's battery level show 100%? Mine always just charges to 99%, no matter what kind of charger I'm using. My battery life is pretty decent however.

My blue AT&T 8X only charges to 99%. I have never seen 100% in 2 weeks.

 

[philxor]

Mine finally said 100% for a brief period. Not really a big deal for me. I can't really explain the difference in standby times before and after rebooting the phone since it's the same exact configuration. Like I said before my guess is background tasks which start up and keep running.

I am okay with putting the phone on the charger every night but it wasn't something I needed to do with my iPhone 4.

 

[Coolknight1968]

Im getting six hours with absolutely everything turned off. I'm loving the phone and Windows Phone 8 both but this is unacceptable, hopefully this gets fixed but if not then there's no way I can do this.

6 hours in LTE?

 

[Sheikmans]

Batterylife is great. After 8 cycles I get 20 hours moderate use, app 4 hours onscreen.
Sent from my Windows Phone 8X by HTC using Board Express

 

[eruptflail]

Take it back and get another one. Also check and make sure you aren't having the skype bug. There is a bug when you install skype that the phone tries to auto-sync and will not stop unless you uninstall skype. Check that out.
Skype and the constant syncing problem on Windows Phone 8 | Windows Phone Central

 

[spiff_p239]

So far I've had great battery life with my Verizon 8X in the few days that I've owned it. In the 6 hours that I was at work today, my battery level only dropped 4%. I'd say that's pretty awesome for standby battery usage. I have 3 e-mail accounts with push delivery, one polling every 15 minutes, and a weather app constantly updating.

 

[jeversion1]

@Jimbo,

Ive probably tried more phone than most people here and probably work on more phones daily than most and I can say this. I tried the 8x first and felt like the 920 features were better so I got that. Ended up returning it again for the 8x (costly mistake). The battery life on it is way better. 920 has tons of issues with being hot and dying. Mine died in 2 hours with me not doing anything and not having any apps open. Its for sure software related even on the 8x because I had the same thing happen to me the first day but never sense. As far as your 900 yes, that will have better battery life windows phone 8 actually allows for background task and apps running even while closed and an extensive amount of push notifications that were locked down to only certain apps in windows phone 7. Comparing it to a Razr which is known to have the best android battery isnt really fare especially on a mature (finally) OS with the newest android. The battery on this isnt even the same size I believe. I do miss the 900 battery but heck I miss the samsung focus battery as well. Hopefully they will drill this problem down in windows phone 8 soon. Even currently I feel like my 8x dies the same amount as my iPhone 5.