HTC 8X has now become the first Windows Phone 8-based smartphone to receive the first ever Windows Phone 8 OTA (over-the-air) update, dubbed Portico. Microsoft has just released the update to the HTC 8X smartphone over the air.

The new update has the build number from 9905 to 10211 and most probably fixes bugs related to the rebooting issue as well as the "keep WiFi alive" feature. Basically, the new update stops the phone from switching from a Wi-Fi connection to cellular when its screen times out and this is a welcome fix after this seemed to be a problem for Windows Phone users since Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 over two years ago.

Per a WPCentral report, a user in Italy confirmed that after updating, a checkbox was available in advanced Wi-Fi settings to "Keep Wi-Fi on when screen times out."

It was also stated that 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 WPCentral report further added.

It has also been mentioned that beyond the Wi-Fi fix, which arrived with the Portico update, there are also at least three new features: the ability to reject calls with an SMS (lately seen in iOS 6), a "select all" SMS function for easier mass deletion, and SMS draft saving for messages that users back out of before sending.

However, the update hasn't arrived on the U.S.-based 8X and 8S devices as of now, and this, per The Verge, “could either mean that Microsoft is staggering the rollout, or that US carriers are holding back on the release. It also isn’t clear yet if the update includes VPN support — the other major feature slated for the Apollo Plus update.”

Nonetheless, there is no word yet on which devices won’t be receiving this update, but it is expected that all Windows Phone 8 devices will be treated to it.

Check out the video below.