The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint regarding the standby battery life of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8. The website product page for the Xperia X8 claims that the handset has a standby battery time of 446 hours.
The person who made the complaint felt this claim was a bit fishy, despite the companies ‘disclaimer’ that “battery performance may vary depending on network conditions and configuration, and phone usage”. The complainant said that numbers should represent some idea of real-life usage.
Sony Ericsson countered that this battery life was indeed possible in a ‘laboratory environment’ but conceded that “when any mobile phone was used in real life, the actual standby time could be considerably lower”.
The ASA upheld the complaint as the claim needed to be qualified saying that this maximum level was theoretical. It therefore found the claim misleading and has ordered the company to change this on the website. As of writing it is still up here and here. It’s a bit harsh to single out Sony Ericsson as all manufacturers do this, however let’s hope this leads to more sensible battery life numbers from across the industry.
Via ASA.
7 responses to “Sony Ericsson gets knuckles rapped over Xperia X8 battery claims”
cry me a river
meh
While I agree with Spilsie regarding the attitude….
I totally agree, that they should have at least a battery life chart based upon real world usage…I have an X10 (Upgraded to MiUI), however before the update, I was only getting 14 hours standby from a fresh charge as I live in an area that I am lucky to get 1-2 bars of signal. If I visit my friend who lives much closer to a tower (full signal) I can leave it on standby for a couple days.
As I said, I totally agree regarding the complaint, as I would like to see the tests standardized so companies can’t pull the numbers out of their @$$. (This should also apply to screen contrast as it’s all BS numbers.)
@ Khast, if your area has poor network coverage then the phone will be constantly trying to seek for the signal, thus using the battery up more quickly. So its hardly the phones fault the battery lasts less time as a result. Its a bit unreasonable to expect SE to give battery life for every possible scenario, especially one like yours.
That is the problem – real world usage depends on so many factors that in fact it would be very difficult indeed to produce any figures that would allow people to compare.
This suggests that the best way to compare battery life is with the absolute maximum the manufacturer can possibly make the battery last – this way we can compare like with like – even if we’d be fools to actually expect anything like that when we come to use the phones.
I also live where there is very marginal signal – I have to be careful where I place my phone to try and ensure I get a bar or two, and even the little signal I get comes and goes. I would like to be able to tell the phone how frequently it should search out signal – but I haven’t seen an option like this for years (if ever – I think my Sony CMD Z5 might have had it, 10 years ago).
Anyone looking for a dramatic improvement in battery life should turn off background updating in Accounts and Sync, and just get their data when they use the app. For your emails, just use Gmail as this is push, ie the phone will get told by Google when new mail is in, rather than the phone checking for itself. I’ve forwarded my Hotmail to the Gmail I had to create for the phone, and told Gmail to reply as if I’m replying from the Hotmail address, so this involved no disruption or telling ppl my new email, etc.
i phoned sony erricson myself regading inflated battery lives..
apparently when they do the test in a “laboratory environment” they charge the phone to full capacity and switch it on without a sim in and then time how long the phoned stays on for… this test is a total waste of time and does not reflect stand by time with a sim.. granted if you are in a week signal area you will get less battery life but even if you are in a good signal area and you set the phone to gsm only so it cant seek so much you still only might get 48 hours out of it.. NOT 400 odd hours… big yinn and i quote ” Its a bit unreasonable to expect SE to give battery life for every possible scenario, especially one like yours.” (climb out of SE a** hole you will stink) all phone manufacturers give a ridiculous standby time.. its not only SE guilty of this. so technically speaking to the letter of the law.. YES they can make a phone last 400 odd hours on standby WITHOUT A SIM IN IT.. but WHO on this planet uses their mobile phone without a sim NO ONE as its impossible.. so the test in the real world is complete and utter crap. and these misleading industries across the board (not just mobile phone manufacturers) should be slapped HARD. p.s. you will find that the test says some where in the small print how the test was carried out . this is how they get around the law. like for example very tempting land line and internet broadband phone bundles and packages you can buy.. but read the small print … excludes line rental… utter utter misleading crap… small print should be banned small print is only there because the offer or statement can be misleading. if it wasnt and it was completely true you wouldnt need small print.. the moral of this storey is this.. if there is small print anywhere then the offer or statement made is more than likely misleading in some way… remember this people..
and finally as an example
“This car can travel at 100 mph.”
if this is a completely true statement then there is no need for small print.
“This car can travel at 100mph ”
(small print: if falling off a cliff)
get the point??
thankyou and goodnight..
please any one help me my mobile is sony ericsson xperi x10i my mobil dont have persian languge please