HTC One X owners fixing battery problem by themselves

HTC One X owners are reporting a battery boost — having applied an unofficial update to the quad-core smart phone, Engadget reports.

According to a thread on XDA-Developers, a user by the name of mike1986 has identified that there’s a problem in the way HTC’s latest toy’s Tegra 3 chip manages its power reserves, and released an unofficial patch that fixes it.

Embarrassingly, it looks like the bug may be down to HTC mistakenly popping an app called NvCPLSvc.apk in the /system/bin folder, when it should have been in the system/app folder.

That seems like a fairly daft oversight to me. Without more widespread testing (and with so many factors affecting battery life), it’s tough to know exactly how helpful the patch has been, but forum posters who’ve installed mike1986’s fix are reporting battery life gains in the 10-20 per cent region.

Unfortunately though, if you want to install the fix you’ll need to root your phone, which we don’t recommend unless you’re an expert tinkerer, as it could bork your mobile. My advice would be to sit tight for now — I’ve contacted HTC to ask whether it’ll be releasing an official fix any time soon, and I’ll let you know if I hear anything back.

Our biggest criticism of the HTC One X was the dodgy battery life. If HTC could squeeze some extra juice with a software update, that could make the 4.7-inch monster much more tempting. The phone has also been plagued by complaints with a wobbly display — something our readers are also reporting.

While the quad-core One X is a true powerhouse, my phone-addled colleague Natasha Lomas (who reviewed the One X) reckons you’d be better off with the slimmer, lighter One S.

Do you own the One X? What do you think of the battery life? Tell me in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.


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