[XPERIA X10 General] maddes1402:
official details from a European Sony product manager

I have some new promissing information concerning the Xperia S (I hope they are new and haven´t been mentioned yet :p). During the time I read all the postings of this thread but perhaps I missed sth.

In a telephone conversation with the Sony Ericcson product manager for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands pocketpc.ch has found out a few more exclusive details about the Xperia S.

Among other things the reason for the permanently installed battery (we reported), information about a nano-coating and the reason for the back cover.

An interesting innovation on the Xperia S should be the special nano coating that envelops the entire body. This is not just dirt-repellent, but also is UV-active. This means that they react to UV radiation and can thus replacing the attached dirt. When the unit is dirty, such as from chocolate, it is enough to keep the phone for a few seconds in the sun and after that you are able to wipe off the dirt very easily. According to the product manager he had already tried this "chocolate test" - with success. If the sun isn´t shinning it is still not a problem because the process continously runs during daylight hours and only takes a little longer.

Also interesting were the reasons why the battery is permanently installed in the newer devices. Sony Ericsson, Sony in particular, emphasis a lot on speed for their new flagship Xperia S and that the use is very comfortable but even fast. This refers not only to the pure hardware performance which performs pretty well, but now also on the battery. Thus, the energy storage of the new Xperia S based on an improved version of the lithium-polymer technology and is intended to be recharged faster than conventional batteries. The higher currents require more power supplies that are shipped with the new generation of smart phones, but also a more powerful battery controller, and to avoid corrosion due to smaller contact areas, a more stable connection to the battery, which can only be make possible by a permanent battery.

So the charging time can be reduced, which would push the wait time to under an hour. Just a ten minute charging allegedly allowed an additional one hour phone time. With the fixed internal battery they also want to avoid that the customer uses a third battery, which may not withstand the high charging and explode.

Many of our users and internal users also wondered why the new Xperias, despite the permanently installed battery, has a removable cover on the back. On the one hand this is due to the housing design, which is still based on a classical two-shell architecture and additionally this kind of design is easier and cheaper for the manufacturer to repair. For this reason, the cover planket screws and other packaging items. On the other hand in this cover the NFC antenna is incorporated, which enables the use of short-range radio and also the function of the smart tags (as reported) provides. In this way, one could clearly separate the antenna from the battery and thus prevent interference. Finally, the inner casing provides added stability, with the slight twisting and grinding (which occurred at the Xperia Arc example) should be avoided.

I tried to translate it a lil bit for you. I appologize for my laziness because I mainly used Google Translate. So if you are an English teacher breath deep and easy. The pain will go away ;). For everybody who can speak German here is the source.