FEATURED - Written by Magnus Andersson on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 12:06 - 21 Comments

Project Hercules

Many people have asked me about the battery consumption on the XPERIA X1. Fair question I think, what is a user experience without power?

Sony Ericsson noted this from the beginning in the X1 development, and therefore we had a special project to work on a new battery. Project name: Hercules (and I think it’s evident where the name comes from).
The battery in the X1 is 1500mAh, which is a large battery.

This topic is very tricky, since he phone in itself has many great features, but they consume a lot of power (a-GPS, WiFi, a large screen etc etc). Nevertheless, this is a really important area and I would therefore like to raise it. I use the phone daily - a lot! - and I usually charge it over night.

Magnus

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21 Comments

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Nitro Fan
Sep 23, 2008 12:30

OK so you concede it is a fair question, yet you choose to give NO specific answer to it, very strange and a bit worrying.
So I have to assume that, given your statement “I usually charge it overnight” the X1 will have a flat battery after being used from say 7.30am to 10.30pm and this in my humble opinion is hardly going to be a great “User Experience” if like me your business means you work in the field for long hours with limited access to power!

Current score: 0

Progetto Hercules e la batteria dell’Xperia - my sony ericsson
Sep 23, 2008 18:14

[...] chi si chiede della durata della batteria nell’Xperia, Magnus Andersson risponde, semplicemente: “che cos’è la user experience senza energia?” La [...]

Current score: 0

Karan
Sep 23, 2008 19:35

Hi,

Just wanted to ask about the xperia release i know the current release date is September the 30th is Tentative and sudject to change but if this does end up being the proper release date will it be available in the Sony Ericsson store from this date or will it be a few days after that.

if anyone has any ideas about the price n the color’s available tht would be great also.

cheers

Current score: 0

Christopher
Sep 24, 2008 19:51

Nitro- I think it is reasonable to expect that a phone with more hardware will consume more power. GPS, and Open GL don’t run on hopes and dreams. The larger battery is a great idea and if you look at standard battery life for most high end devices (Blackberry, iphone, etc) you’ll see that there is always a trade off with additional hardware features vs battery life. The 3G iphone gets less battery life than the original iphone yet few would say it has a poor user experience or was a poor choice for Apple.
I think with proper power management and a larger battery you can expect to see the Experia behave as well as any smart phone in it’s power consumption.

Current score: 0

Abhinav
Sep 25, 2008 6:11

Why hasn’t SE published a template for programming in VB.net and only restricted to c++. After all VB .net is used for most Windows Mobile Applications.

Current score: 0

kevin
Sep 26, 2008 16:30

I went to a Vodafone store yesterday and they have the release date for the xperia x1 down as 5th of October but that is a Sunday. And O2 ,t-mobile and orange don’t know anything about the phone so I guess is either not coming out on the 5th or Vodafone have got it all to them selves.

Current score: 0

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Battery Has The Power Of Hercules! Well, A Day At Least… - Mobile Phone News From Omio
Sep 26, 2008 17:23

[...] a post on the Xperiancers blog goes some way to addressing the lattermost issue, with a sort-of in depth mesage about the [...]

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Bali Canto
Sep 29, 2008 13:24

The phone will be out on Vodafone, and they have a tentative date of the 15th apparently. It’s in testing on Orange (i.e. they’e putting all their horrible branding software on it), but knowing Orange it will be ages before they launch the Xperia. Haven’t seen any information about O2 yet.

It’s all a little cloak-and-dagger, perhaps quite unnecessarily. If companies just told people when the phone was launching and on which network, they’d be doing themselves a favour. The Xperia has already been a long time in the making, and the anticipation is dwindling.

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tommy
Oct 4, 2008 6:23

Maybe Sony is not targeting the UK market as anything more than a test market, hence the less than perfect advertising? Anyone consider that for the reason behind why the UK is not prepared for the xperia x1?

tommys last blog post..Sony Releases Several New Xperia X1 Promo Videos

Current score: 0

Michael
Oct 28, 2008 20:00

Hi just wondering would anyone know how long you would have to charge the xperia. i work at carphoen and we advise all customers to charge their handset for 6-8 before first use, however, the sony ericsson have stated 2.5 hours

Current score: 0

Ham Yoke Chung
Nov 13, 2008 23:50

Absolutely love this phone as it’s well implemented, has a great design and you can tell it’s powered by awesome processor & respectable hardware specs.

However, several niggly issues deprive users from the ultimate experience:-

1. 1 Day battery life can be quite limiting for the road warrior as mentioned by someone earlier but the slow charging adaptor does not give much quick reprieve either if you have just realized it’s down to 1 bar of juice left and you are heading out for half a day of heavy calls & meetings.

Suggestion: SE needs to quickly roll out a small & nifty portable, standalone (read: rapid) battery charger so that a road warrior can always have quick battery backups in relatively short amount of time.

2. Current WM6.1 on Xperia also currently requires a few tweaks to:-
a. Put a “Disconnect” button to the GPRS Connection Window popup for adhoc, user-initiated kill switch
b. Refine the interaction with ActiveSync’s Scheduled email download feature. This is important as it is currently pointless to setup periodic Exchange Sync if the GPRS does not drop the connection when above task is completed. Granted most heavy users today are able to sign up for high-usage Data Plan, the main issue with a neglected, left ON connection is the obvious drain to *precious* battery resources.
c. Address Message Notification Popups that don’t quite go away until application is closed - Hmmm, not a serious flaw but would be nice if the “Dismiss” button actually worked :)
d. SE has planted a “Signature Replacement” file in one of the Windows Startup folders that actually wipes out my Outlook Mobile’s email sign-off after a reboot. Not sure why this is so. Whilst I am okay to post the “Sent from my Sony Ericsson Experia ™ X1″ line, it would be better if I can conform to my corporate email guidelines by appending my usual contact details.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Current score: 0

Vanessa
Nov 20, 2008 3:51

=( the battery didn’t last long..i always need to charge it everyday..can’t last even just for another day..

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Rob
Dec 6, 2008 20:06

My battery life is 7 - 9 hours and that’s on a LOW usage day. I’ve got everything disabled except Bluetooth. It’s hopeless. SE quotes 500 hours on their site. My old P910i gave me 4 days of standby!

Current score: 0

Crash Override
Dec 15, 2008 21:33

Same as Rob - usually arrive at 7-9 hours when phone is in low signal area.
I used to get 4 days from my XDA Mini S, made by HTC the same company that actually makes the Xperia. Am very disappointed and will probably have to return the phone for something else.

It’s a damn shame because the handset is amazing other than that. It is beautiful.

How can they advertise 500 hours when I get about 10 and yet my XDA was advertised with 170 hours and you actually got that?

That is criminal. I wonder whether this particular handset is defective.

Current score: 0

Crash Override
Dec 16, 2008 23:13

Further to my previous comment - I read up on certain message boards and followed the advice of draining the Xperia’s battery and performing a hard-reset then charging the device completely.

Following this procedure my device’s battery life has increased very considerably. The Xperia has been on today for nearly 10 hours. during that time I have made a number of very quick phonecalls and used media player at full volume, connected to a hi-fi for probably 30mins. The device’s green power guage is still showing approx. 90% and I suspect that is being rounded-down.

I would encourage everyone experiencing power issues to consider resetting their device in the manner described.

The problem is apparently due to Windows 6.1 analysing the battery when the device is first activated. At that point the current battery charge is considered to be the highest possible battery level. This means that my Xperia has only been charging up to perhaps 5 / 10% maximum. This is a bug with Windows Mobile after version 5.

For new users this means that you should charge the device fully before turning it on.

Current score: 0

Khan
Dec 22, 2008 11:15

@ crash override, are you sure this works, cauz im sick of its battery life and it doesnt even last me a day

Current score: 0

Khan
Dec 22, 2008 11:19

hi All,

can someone tell me how can i forward a text message

Current score: 0

Karan Bindra
Dec 22, 2008 19:43

Jst go to your inbox and tap on the message which u want to forward and after that selected message will get dark in colour the tap on menu there will be a option of forward i guess the second option.
If while selecting the message the phone shows you the contact detail of person then just press the ok button next to the battery then you can see the selected part.

Best of luck

Current score: 0

Crash Override
Dec 22, 2008 23:57

Absolutely positive - I was as skeptical as you must be when I heard. I had the same problem as you.

A possible alternative (if you don’t want to format) is to turn off the phone and then charge it. If the operating system is not running then only the hardware battery guaging will be in effect and the battery should charge to its full 100% irrespective of the fault on the OS.

This problem is common to other Win6.1 handsets apparently such as the HTC Touch Pro.

I’ve emailed Sony Ericsson’s X1 support here in the UK and apparently a firmware update is on its way to sort this. I’m not sure how they’re going to get it to O2 / Vodafone branded handsets though as these do not update using the Sony Ericsson Update Service. I emailed them back for info on that.

I was sickened by the telephone support as they said that 7 hours battery standby was normal and that if I wasn’t happy I should return the phone and buy something else. Unbelievable. I’m just happy I proved those idiots wrong. They tried to palm me off with the idea that it was a small laptop and “how many hours of battery do you get from your laptop”? I haven’t got it up to 500 hours but I have got it roughly equivalent to my old HTC handset the O2 XDA Mini S

Current score: 0

Khan
Jan 6, 2009 12:59

thanks karan

Current score: 0

Khan
Jan 6, 2009 13:00

hi crash, i tried it but no luck…. still same doesnt even last 12 hours. im really getting sick of charging it all the time

Current score: 0

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