HTC 8X OTA update brings persistent Wi-Fi to Windows Phone 8

The first Over-The-Air (OTA) Windows Phone 8 update for HTC 8X is out and it brings a host of fixes and features including, finally, persistent Wi-Fi connections.

Windows Phone devices have frustrated many-a-user by dropping Wi-Fi connections as soon as the display is switched off. This means unless your mobile data connection is switched on, you'll not receive new email alerts or any other notifications that require data connectivity.

Windows Phone 8, to the disappointment of many, did nothing to address this problem. However, it seems Microsoft was fully aware how big an annoyance this is for users, since it was deemed important enough to be included in the first OTA Windows Phone 8 update. Users can now choose to keep Wi-Fi on at all times by having the "Keep WiFi on when screen times out" option checked.

As per the guys over at Windows Phone Central, the update also fixes the random reboots issue that had plagued some phones. They also say the update adds new features like SMS Call Reject, SMS Drafts and SMS Select to the OS.

Here are the guys talking about the update experience:

The update, called Portico, took about 10 minutes to download and for the device to prepare. Once we agreed to the update, the device reboot itself and launched into a "moving gears" mode whereby the OS was clearly patching itself. That process took another 10 minutes or so at which point the OS rebooted and reloaded. Once there, the OS did a migration of our data (in four steps). That process took another 5 minutes or so, at which point we were brought to the full newly updated OS.

The update seems to have been rolled out selectively, since users in some regions don't seem to have received it yet.