HTC One XL review

Packed inside the One XL is the same 1800mAh battery as the One X. And while the Jelly Bean update brought with it a dedicated battery saving mode, it's still locked into the phone with no option for user access.

The One X's battery life was relatively disappointing, even though it was a bit smaller. A big portion of that could be put down to the quad-core processor. The One XL has ditched the quad core processor, but added the even more battery-intensive LTE connectivity.

On a day of moderate use - status updates on Facebook, some photos and video recording, and a handful of phonecalls and a spot of Fruit Ninja, the battery managed to kick on until the evening.

On days with a slightly more intensive schedule, the charger needed to be plugged in by mid afternoon for fear of being stranded without a phone.

Accessing data over LTE also had an obvious effect on battery life. Connecting to Telstra's fast network knocked the phone out fairly quickly.

Connectivity

It's not just LTE on board either. The One XL has 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC built in, as well as DLNA connectivity.

That's a pretty nice lineup of acronyms and numbers, but the truth is that for the most part, you won't even use half of them.

Bluetooth 4.0, for example, is the latest standard for the wireless technology, and allows for extremely low powered transmission of data to third party devices, like the Fitbit One.

The problem is that finding Bluetooth 4.0 accessories is limited at the moment, and even Fitbit's offerings only work with the company's iOS app at the moment.

NFC is a similar technology with plenty of potential, but not a lot of practical usage. Android Beam, the wireless transmission standard that allows you to share files and apps by holding two NFC phones against eachother, doesn't work for everything.

We tried to share a trailer from the Xperia TX to the One XL with no luck, although sharing apps was simple enough.

Until NFC-enabled mobile payments take off - which could happen this year thanks to partnerships between Visa and mobile carriers - the NFC function in your phone is unlikely to get a lot of use.

But even though some of these technologies won't get used yet, it's still reassuring to know they are in there, as there's a good chance they'll become a lot more useful over the course of a 24 month mobile contract.