Smart Ways to Survive Festival Season

Festival season is just around the corner and you’re probably already thinking about the essentials you need to pack. Aside from sun cream, your backpack and a tent that will stand out from the crowd, the one thing you shouldn’t leave behind is your smartphone. Undeniably handy for locating lost friends, checking festival information or placing a marker to help you find your tent in the sea of thousands, your smartphone can be your lifeline.

However, festivals can also be a tough place for your phone, with fields of mud, the fear of smashed screens and the constant threat of rain. That’s why we’re on hand with a few tips to let you enjoy yourself while staying connected this festival season.

Be smart with your smartphone

Your main adversary will probably be the weather. After all, have you ever been to a festival where the sun shone gloriously all weekend? There are many occasions when your phone will look after you during the festival so its good to anticipate how you’re going to look after your phone. Xperia X has a range of protective style covers that will keep your phone looking ‘as-new’ even amid everything a festival throws at you so this may be a worthwhile investment.

Keep charged

Most smartphone users realise incredibly quickly that there’s a distinct lack of energy sources in the middle of a field, so unless you’re packing the battery life of Xperia Z5 and Xperia X (usage for up to two days** between charges) you’ll probably need to take strides to preserve your smartphone’s battery.
Thankfully there are multiple steps you can take to keep them alive while you’re away from the mains. Firstly, don’t drain your battery on the way to the festival – you’ll appreciate having a full charge once you’ve set up your tent. If you know you’re not going to see a plug socket for a fair while, you may want to consider how you can reduce power consumption while still getting the most out of your device.

Google’s “Doze” automatically reduces data traffic when your smartphone has been idle for a prolonged period, decreasing power usage. However, you can ensure you receive crucial notifications simply by tapping “Battery Optimization” and whitelisting the apps you want to stay available.

When you’re really in need of saving battery, “STAMINA mode” is available. You can switch it on and it will cleverly turn off or limit power-hungry features such as: GPS, vibration, image enhancement, rendering performance and background data traffic (at the same time your whitelisted apps remain active).

Put some power in your pocket

It’s inevitable that you’ll run out of battery eventually so make sure you’ve got a portable power bank on-hand, such as the Sony CP-V9. Its compact design fits perfectly in your bag or pocket to give your smartphone 3.5 charges; if used correctly this little powerhouse could get you and your phone through a longer festival without trouble.

If the weekend has taken over and you’ve forgotten how many charges you’ve got left, the handy LED indicators let you check the remaining charge at a glance. Thanks to the multiple USB ports you can even help out your friends and charge two devices simultaneously. Remember: most places will have charging units but these will be very popular and oversaturated so pick an off-peak period to bring your CP-V9 back to life.

Keep the music going

If you want to keep the party going back at your tent you could bring a portable SRS-XB3 speaker -with its 24-hour battery life you should be able to pester your fellow campers for most of the weekend. The speaker can connect via Bluetooth, but by enabling NFC on your Xperia device, you can simply tap to automatically sync up and begin playing your music.

Re-charge 

Nobody goes to a festival for a good sleep but the humble practice is an essential part of enjoying the weekend at your best. On the occasions where you want to recharge and take a night off from the all-night parties. You can get a few heavenly hours sleep with some noise cancelling headphones. To avoid potential cord-tangle scenarios the Sony MDR-100ABN are a great option to help you tune in to the music you love and tune out the noises you don’t.

Make some memories

The hardest thing about a festival is the inevitable return to work. The best way of getting through is to look back through the photos you captured from the week. Reminisce about the great artists you saw, the friends you made and the incredible time you all had.

Obviously this relies on capturing them in the first place. Luckily Xperia X has a powerful camera with Predictive Hybrid Autofocus that lets you choose your subject and predict its motion. This means you can capture a singer strutting around the stage or your friends dancing on the grass in focus and with minimal blur. 

Inevitably the photos you want to see are the ones withyou in it, so getting great selfies will be crucial.  Xperia X has a 13MP front facing camera, with an Exmor RS^TM for mobile sensor that makes it possible to get a clear selfie in any condition. Get one of them up as your profile picture and watch as your friends jealously ‘like’ them. The perfect end to your festival experience.

* Battery life has been measured against Sony Mobile Communications AB’s smartphone usage profile, defined in September 2014 to represent the typical smartphone user’s active condition, including but not limited to a range of usage scenarios (calling, texting, web browsing, social networking, game playing, music listening, picture taking, picture browsing, online video watching, video recording and playback) 

by Sony Mobile PR Team via Blog Portal