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Sony Xperia 1 Review - Battery Life Review

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What is the Sony Xperia 1’s battery life like?

  • The Xperia 1 packs a fairly small 3300mAh battery with fast-charging via USB-C.
  • Battery life is fine, but nowhere near as good as some of the competition.
  • It will just about get you through the day without requiring a top-up.

I’ve been using the Sony Xperia 1 as my main work phone for the past three weeks. I’d class my usage as heavy: multiple hours of music streaming, plenty of calls and lots of social media/email activity per day.

Coming from the Huawei P30 Pro (a phone that can comfortably last two full days without a charge), the endurance of the Xperia 1 is disappointing – and more comparable with smaller handsets such as the Galaxy S10 and iPhone XS. This is very much a charge every night phone.

Related: Best phones

Sony Xperia 1 battery performance: Video

The display is the biggest feature on the Sony Xperia 1. Being a 4K panel means that there are many more pixels to push around and, as such, it seems odd that Sony didn’t counteract this extra pressure with a more sizeable battery. This phone is great for media consumption, but that comes with a big strain on battery life.

Watching an hour of Netflix at 50% brightness took the battery down by 12% – which is double that consumed by the Huawei P30 Pro (6%) for the same content.

Sony Xperia 1 battery performance: Games

Gaming is a serious strain on a phone’s battery, even more so than video.

The Xperia 1 consumed between 18-22% per hour playing games such as Asphalt 9, and 14-16% in simpler titles such as Monument Valley 2 and Alto’s Odyssey. This is actually a much better result when compared to the P30 Pro.

Sony Xperia 1 battery performance: Charging

Sony doesn’t have a proprietary version of fast charge, instead using the common USB-C PD standard. While this means speeds aren’t as fast as Super Charge on the P30 Pro or Warp Charge on the OnePlus 7 Pro, you can use PD charger to juice up the Xperia 1.

A full charge takes just over 90 minutes and you can go from 0-40% in half an hour. There’s no wireless charging.

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