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Battery life
Tucked inside the Sony Xperia T is a standard Li-ion 1,850 mAh battery.
It's not as large as the 2,100 mAh monster inside the Samsung Galaxy S3 but then again the dual core processor doesn't require as much power as Samsung's quad-core offering.
The Sony Xperia T is a solid body phone, which means the battery can't be swapped out or changed.
On the one hand, we appreciate the slimness and the build quality, but it has to be said that not having the option to swap in a new battery is limiting.
If you're a regular traveller or heavy duty user we can definitely forgive you marking Sony down for this.
The Japanese company quotes the up to seven hours talk time and 450 hours of standby time with the Xperia T and we found this to be broadly in line with real-life usage.
You won't necessarily have to charge it every night, but if you do start to use the phone heavily – the battery will suffer.
Obviously heavy media use will kill the battery even quicker. Sony estimates the Xperia T will manage up to 16 hours of music playback and up to 5 hours of video playback, which we feel to be a bit optimistic. Video particularly seemed to drain the Xperia T down very quickly.
Connectivity
In terms of connectivity, the big marketing point of the Xperia T is the inclusion of NFC (Near Field Communications), the same contactless technology already in use with Oyster cards (and notably not in use with the new iPhone).
Sony includes three Xperia NFC Tags with the Xperia T and these can be attached anywhere to quickly change the settings or profile of the handset with no more than a tap.
So, for example – if you put a tag in the car, you can swipe the Xperia T against it to automatically launch Bluetooth and pair to a hands-free kit for driving. Or place one at work for a quick swipe to silent mode.
Recently Sony has also shown off its NFC speaker. If your Xperia T is playing music, you can touch it to the speaker for an immediate transference of music.
Similarly, Android Beam enables you to swap pictures, notes, tracks or other data with another NFC-enabled Android handset by simply touching the two together.
Admittedly NFC is still in its infancy, and we don't expect it to be the deciding factor in purchasing a smartphone at the moment. And it also requires extra expenditure if you want to buy more Xperia tags or other accessories.
Where it will work well is with connections to Smart TVs and monitors, enabling you to view pictures and videos shot with the handset on a large screen.
The only wired port on the Xperia T is a micro USB slot on the left of the handset which handles both charging and PC transfer.
You can choose to install the Sony Xperia software suite onto your PC upon connection but because this is Android, file swapping is a simple drag-and-drop routine.
