I bought the Xperia used two years ago, and I’ve generally been happy with it. However, when it comes to the battery, maybe I got a dud—or maybe I’ve just been rough on it—but lately the battery life has become pretty questionable. AccuBattery shows the current capacity at around 80%. Normally that would still be usable, but this model (based on the Xperia 1 III) already had a notorious reputation for poor battery life. Now that the battery has degraded even further, charging it during the day is a must. I can’t go anywhere without a power bank, and every night I have to charge both the phone and the power bank. It’s a small hassle, but it adds up.
To make matters worse, if you take a Sony phone to an authorized store for a battery replacement, they wipe it without question. (Do other brands do this too?) With all the apps I’ve accumulated—banking apps, social media, store memberships, the My Number portal, and countless others—the very thought of a factory reset makes me dizzy.
Even if I went through the trouble of replacing the battery, this model has already fallen out of Android OS and security update support. That doesn’t exactly make it a device I want to keep using for much longer.
So, even though it’s a little early—just under two years—I decided it might be time for a replacement.
The first candidate I considered wasn’t another Xperia, but an iPhone. iPhones have higher trade-in value and receive OS and security updates for longer periods. With talk of “Trump tariffs” possibly driving up iPhone prices, now seemed like the perfect time to buy.
But in the end, I decided against the iPhone again this time.
The main reason is apps. Some Android apps I’ve grown accustomed to simply don’t have iOS versions. Sure, I could replace them with alternatives, but I’d rather stick with what I know. Without those apps, I’m not exactly motivated to carry two iPhones (including the one from work) around with me.
The other reason is my Apple account situation. When we first started using Apple devices at home, my wife and I shared an Apple ID. That’s led to a tangled mess. My original ID is now hers, and I use a different Apple ID for work. But my Apple Music subscription is tied to the original ID, which means I can’t listen to my Apple Music library on my work iPhone or iPad since they’re logged into a different account.
You might think, “Why not just log into your original Apple ID?” But doing that would mean sharing all of my wife’s photos and videos. (There’s probably a way to work around it, but if I made a mistake and deleted or overwrote her media, it would be a disaster—so I stay far away from that minefield.)
Ironically, Android devices have no such problem. I can simply install the Apple Music app, log in with my original ID, and access my own library with no fuss. So, if I want to listen to my Apple Music library, I have no choice but to stick with an Android phone—an odd situation to be in.