Why I'm beginning to dislike my HTC 8X

[ajua]

Off-topic, as a fellow 8X owner, does anyone else use one of these battery monitor apps that give you a % on a tile and the lock screen? I'm wondering if they're worth it or if they actually add to battery drain.

They don't add to battery drain as they only update the tile and or lockscreen icon every 30 minutes. The first one for Windows Phone 8 was Battery Level for WP8 and it's still the best around. It has an option to keep a history of your usage which is nice. Try it.

[ajua]

There were some poblems reported on the first batches of the 8X and Lumia 920 about random reboots and other issues. Try to get a replacement.

Have you asked for a new SIM card? Try that as well.

About the storage and lack of an SD card option, it's something you should have considered before going with this phone. 16GB is plenty enough for tons of photos, music (I change it constantly) and other files. If you need more, go with an SD card phone or one that offers more than 16GB of internal storage.

I see a non removable battery as a tradeoff. You can get great phone designs and unibodys like the one the 8X has. Sure, it would be great to have it removable, but again, it was something you should have considered before buying/signing on this phone.

I take it you are new to Windows Phone. Take some time to get used to how it works, specially the little details like how you select or move the typing indicator. Android has a better implementation, but I like that in WP you just tap a word to select it, instead of double tapping like Android. I use that more often than needing to move the typing indicator somewhere else.

[Vinny4]

Had my 8X for over 2 months now, no issues at all, works perfect, no wearing out of the corners, no ripping of the rubber coating, no reboots, no freezing, no problems, all good over here.

[ACTIONpack]

Had my for over 3 months and I try to keep it in perfect condition. Never drop it. My only issue is the corners are too sharp and the grease stain on all the edges.

[Nashy]

• You can't take the battery out. Why in the world can't the battery be taken out? What if my phone freezes and the buttons aren't responding? I'd have to wait until the battery drains to recharge it. The battery life is awesome though, but in this case it is pretty annoying.
  

The buttons should never not respond. It's hard coded to the device. In this day and age, we don't need to replace batteries. This is a null argument since you knew it was the case when you bought it. If you didn't, you didn't do much research.

No additional memory slots???

As above

The keyboard is a 5/10 overall. The big downer is that it doesn't have arrows to navigate the text you've just written. So when I want to go add a word mid-way through a paragraph, I either have to keep trying to press that magic spot on the screen between words, or I just touch the word next to it and retype. Difficult to explain, but I think 8X users would feel me on this.

I personally think the KB is the best I've used across all the major OS'. I understand what you mean in regard to selecting the text. I have a Lumia and didn't realise you could put the pointer somewhere between letters, I just usually end up re-typing the word.

Phone randomly restarts whenever it wants to. I was browsing a forum on it yesterday and out of nowhere it started the shutdown process and told me "goodbye" :(. Then it proceeded to repeat this for the next 10 minutes. Luckily the 8X has a great loading time...which only got my hopes up for a few seconds before it told me "goodbye" again.

I wonder if this is a WP8 Portico (whatever the codename of the update is) issue. This happens on mine, and two friends Lumia 920s also. PITA!!

This morning I woke up and checked my phone for messages. The back-lit touch buttons on the bottom were all lit up, but the phone was not responsive. Normally you could yank the battery out for a second and replace it and be fine. Well, I couldn't access the battery and none of the buttons wanted to do anything. So I just waited. Still hasn't changed.

Surely there is a procedure to rethe phone using a button combination?

If you're having issues with the SIM, take it back. It should still be under warranty.

[Osiris]

I've had this phone with launch and have not had a restart yet, the issues you have been having post jan 15 sound like something has gone wrong with the device and yes that would be frustrating...your complaints before then aren't really valid, should have researched the product more it was well known the battery isnt removable and that there is no card expansion slot etc.

[Scorbing]

I've had my black HTC 8X for 1 month and 5 days. The first 3 weeks were absolutely wonderful. I was amazed at the speed, loved getting my 4G back (whole different story with Verizon), and the general feel was great. I still had a few reservations which slightly annoy me.

• You can't take the battery out. Why in the world can't the battery be taken out? What if my phone freezes and the buttons aren't responding? I'd have to wait until the battery drains to recharge it. The battery life is awesome though, but in this case it is pretty annoying.
  
• No additional memory slots???
  
• Shotty SIM card slot. Even though I didn't have problems with it in the beginning, I was worried about it simply due to the "looseness" feel of that little panel holding it in.
  
• The keyboard is a 5/10 overall. The big downer is that it doesn't have arrows to navigate the text you've just written. So when I want to go add a word mid-way through a paragraph, I either have to keep trying to press that magic spot on the screen between words, or I just touch the word next to it and retype. Difficult to explain, but I think 8X users would feel me on this.
  

Enter January 15th. For the past week I have had nothing but problems with this phone.

• Phone randomly restarts whenever it wants to. I was browsing a forum on it yesterday and out of nowhere it started the shutdown process and told me "goodbye" :(. Then it proceeded to repeat this for the next 10 minutes. Luckily the 8X has a great loading time...which only got my hopes up for a few seconds before it told me "goodbye" again.
  
• Every time I unplug from the charging cable my SIM card goes "missing." A quick fix is to power the phone down and reboot. It only takes maybe 45 seconds to fully boot up, so no biggie right? Well, when I reboot the SIM card is apparently still on vacation. I try waiting, sometimes upwards to 30 minutes. No success. I reboot and repeat the previous steps until it starts working again.
  
• SIM card also goes "missing" randomly throughout the day.
  
• Those times my SIM card is not detected I cannot send text messages, make phone calls, or use any sort of application that requires data. I don't understand why everything must rely on my SIM card now? With my Thunderbolt I could yank the 4G SIM card out (worked, but Verizon refused to replace the phone...long story) and still text, browse the internet, etc. Granted it was only 1x...but I could still do it.
  
• This morning I woke up and checked my phone for messages. The back-lit touch buttons on the bottom were all lit up, but the phone was not responsive. Normally you could yank the battery out for a second and replace it and be fine. Well, I couldn't access the battery and none of the buttons wanted to do anything. So I just waited. Still hasn't changed.
  

I'm starting to be fed up with this phone. Between work and school, I haven't had a spare few hours to go to Verizon to have them look at it. If I get done with my paper early today, I'll take it. But its a little frustrating to say the least.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues?

Edit:

And here's some of the things I've experienced or see pretty often with friends:

http://forums.wpcent...ed-its-own.html

http://forums.wpcent...hone-calls.html (this is one issue I have)

http://forums.wpcent...verizon-8x.html (same as above)

You should have looked at all those things before buying it, don't you think? Never, ever buy a phone whose battery cannot be removed or replaced. Big mistake.

I got a co-worker that bought the Nokia 920 and he is now feeling sorry he did because of the same reasons you are beginning to dislike yours:

1. His battery is not removable

2. No expansion slot

3. Battery life sucks (in his case)

[Donna Lynn]

Has anyone else experienced similar issues?

Yes, I have almost exactly the same problems. I have had my phone for five months--mine is through AT&T. At first it was wonderful, no issues. I really do like the interface and it's easy to use. However, the issues are getting annoying, I could see having issues if it was "refurbished" or "used," but this was a brand new phone and I have been using it only for five months, but the issues started about 1 1/2 months in--with a 30 return policy. :( So much for durability.

• Phone randomly restarts whenever it wants to.

This is the biggest pain. It has cut out in the middle of phone conversations, reading or responding to texts, reading or responding to email. (Sometimes it saves to drafts, but not always.) It has cut out in games, FaceBook, Twitter--pretty much any app or feature, so it appears to be random.

• Every time I unplug from the charging cable my SIM card goes "missing." SIM card also goes "missing" randomly throughout the day.

Same issue when unplugging. Also, I get the message that the 'SIM Card is not found' at least once a day now, but often several times a day. I have to take it out and put it back in, which reboots the phone. This also means I have to take it out of the protective case--which was purchased at the AT&T store.

 

• No additional memory slots???

Yes, I also thought that the memory capacity would be enough when I bought the phone and I knew that it didn't have an exterior memory slot. I think the problem is that the OS hogs a lot of the memory. I have had to "reset" my phone twice, once because it kept saying I needed to reduce the memory in order to install updates.  I tried removing every app I had installed and cutting out all email interfaces, but it still said the memory was low. I moved all my pictures on to SkyDrive and removed any Ringtones I had gotten from AT&T or HTC. When looking at the memory allocation most of the memory issues were in parts of the memory that couldn't be touched-- the OS and the phone updates were hogging the memory.

 

The other time I reset because of all the issues this user is describing. The "resets" helped temporarily, but the old issues were back again within a few weeks. I learned to save things to SkyDrive to reduce the memory issue. It has Beats Audio, but what good is that if you can't really store music, or your music cuts out because your phone restarts?

 

The back-lit touch buttons on the bottom were all lit up, but the phone was not responsive. 

I also get the issue with the touchscreen not responding. The only option is to reboot.

 

You can't take the battery out. Why in the world can't the battery be taken out?

I also wish you could remove/replace the battery. My phone holds a charge for less than a day. If I'm using it heavily it dies within about 3 - 4 hours. 

 

• The keyboard is a 5/10 overall. The big downer is that it doesn't have arrows to navigate the text you've just written. So when I want to go add a word mid-way through a paragraph, I either have to keep trying to press that magic spot on the screen between words, or I just touch the word next to it and retype. Difficult to explain, but I think 8X users would feel me on this.

Ditto on this-completely. I have small hands and fingers and it still feels like "fat fingers" with this online keyboard-- and sometimes it just won't rotate to the "landscaped" in the middle of typing something, if I started in the "portrait" view. 

 

In addition:

• There have been several times I got messages or calls, but didn't receive them on my phone-- even when it was fully powered and on.
• I have problems with the Bluetooth interface with my car's hands' free phone system. It will "dial" and the person answered, but I couldn't hear them, and it looked like it was still "dialing."
• Phone calls where and I can't hear the person or they can't hear me. We call using my my husbands' phone at the same place and time and there are no issues. He is on the same network and phone plan, but has a Blackberry.

I have all the latest "updates." It is set to update automatically, but when I check it says it's updated. 

 

I don't have any "strange" apps or anything that would be outside the norm.

 

Does anyone have realistic solutions? 

 

Thanks!

 

[Linkinfamous]

 

What if my phone freezes and the buttons aren't responding? I'd have to wait until the battery drains to recharge it. The battery life is awesome though, but in this case it is pretty annoying.

 

In these kinds of devices, the override shutdown button combo isn't handled by the high level stuff in the OS. It's a lot deeper in the system firmware. The odds of the SoC freezing up and not being responsive to the 'shut down' combo are pretty low.