Extremely bad battery life on my Xperia ray.

[#1]

Hi, I recently purchased a new Xperia Ray, used it for a week but the battery life is extremely poor if I use the phone. No point spending £200+ on a smart phone when I spend more time conserving the battery than using it was a smart phone right?

I've contacted Sony via E-mail but they gave me the vaguest response ever, so I'm here appealing for better answers. I'll copy my e-mail and the reponse here:

Hi, I recently bought a new Xperia ray, and I am a bit concerned about the battery life.

People has claimed 2-3 days of battery life with light usage, but I can't even get one full day of light usage.

Activities include just leaving phone on standby with music in the background and sending the odd text/facebook message.

I checked the battery use, and to get to 20% battery, it took 12 hours.

38% music

14% display (which is very strange because screen has only been turned on for 5 short times)

10% wifi, 9% Media server, 7% trackID (7% from track id-ing 1 song????), and so on.

To see how much the display would consume, I turned the display on to roughly 50% and to not time out - idle.

After 30 minutes, battery dropped down to 10% with the percentage on the display from 15% to 30% usage.

Is there a fault with my machine? I flashed to build number 4.0.2.A.0.58 from an earlier build, it seemed to have improved slightly (the battery life was much worse, the previous build only gave me literally 6 hours use before dying)

What can I do? I am really disappointed with the battery life, it seems much worse than the battery I had on my Apple iPod Touch - which I thought was already quite bad.

If the battery life doesn't get fixed soon, I am really considering a refund because the battery life just doesn't work for me. Being forced to limit the tasks you can do on your phone because you don't want the battery to die too fast really isn't on.

And the reply:

Dear Ben,

Thank you for contacting Sony Ericsson Xperia™ Support.

    In regards to your inquiry about the inconveniences you are expeirencing with the battery life of your phone. I am sorry that you are experiencing this inconvenience with the battery life of your phone. You may download and install a Task Killer application form the Market in order to help you close/kill all aplications that are not being used on the phone in order to save battery power. You may also try reinstalling/repairing the software of the phone using a program called PC Companion which you can download from our website. You will need access to a Microsoft® Windows® computer and to the original USB data cable of the phone. If you require further assistance you can contact tehcnical support in your country at +44 08705 237 237.

As part of Sony Ericsson's commitment to excellent customer service, we offer a wide variety of mobile products to suit your lifestyle. If you require more information, or have any other questions, please visit our website at SonyEricsson.com/Xperia.


Best regards,
Raul

Anyone can give me any suggestions?

I've even tried to install cynomod 7 but the user interface is just sooo bad I cannot use it.

Thanks, BEN

[uliwooly-wooly]

12hours it's about right, I get 8 hours out of my Arc, since I leave gps on, brightness 50%, Sync on, take a LOT of pictures, send a lot of sms/mms, and phonecalls

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/08/25/droid-x-tops-all-android-superphones-in-battery-life-tests/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243242/iphone_4s_battery_life_how_does_it_compare_to_other_smartphone...

btw, is this your first smartphone?

[#3]

3rd smartphone, my old Xperia x8 lasts MUCH longer than this, and my old iPhone 3g lasted slightly less, but much more than my ray currently.

I don't think 12 hours is right because all these review sites claim they get at least a day and a half on heavy usage, which is one main reason why I purchased this phone.

My GPS is off, my display is always at 40%, I never take pictures, I play a 15 minute game a day, check eBay for 5 minutes, facebook is on, Wifi always on, bluetooth always off, sync on, but I leave that on because my phone becomes useless with it off.

I don't send much SMSs, dont call people much, max 10 min call a day, 10 texts a day, minimum zilch calls and texts a day.

I don't check my phone often as I always go out or have lessons at school. Music is on 30% of the time.

I really don't think this is classed as heavy usage, my old iPhone lasted me 1 and a half days like this and my x8 lasted me 2 days roughly, 3 days max like this.

Edit - list of things I've done

update xperia software

install cynogen (improved battery life by like 1 hour)

calibrate battery (by completely making battery go 0%, charge battery back to 100% while phone is off)

And I still get this useless battery life.

[uliwooly-wooly]

try this, charge your phone 100% turn it off, turn it back on, connect it to the charger once its 100% again, unplug it and use it as you normally would

once you get to 10% go to

settings -> about phone -> battery usage

take screenshots of the general graph, menu and write down how much each app has being used (hours minutes or take screenshots and share them here)

having the Bravia engine running and Xloud does take a big part of your battery

[#5]

Just edited my post regarding the battery calibration, done that already.

I will post a battery useage graph for my day tomorrow.

Don't see how the bravia engine and xloud will affect my battery majorly but I'll turn it off and see, I don't notice the difference anyway

Thanks

edit -

One thing I have been noticing in battery usage is that my the % usage for the display is always a couple of 10 percents higher than the next highest on my list (Wi-fi)

I mean for my usage today, its 9% wifi and 61% display, been on battery for 7h 54 mins.

Trust me here, I've only  have the display on for..... 30 minutes in total today.

And I was roughly 12% when I got home and put phone on charge @4pm  - unpluged from charge @8.30AM

[uliwooly-wooly]

anytime, well the screen uses most of the battery, and the Bravia Engine will take a bigger chunk of your battery

[#7]

Yeah as I said in my edit, my screen has only been on for no more than 30 minutes today.

And if I rememeber correctly, the Bravia engine only works for videos/photos such as in the gallery?

[Markus1]

"Normal use" is a tricky thing and probably something that never is the same for different users.

I've been using Xperia ray for abot 6 months and I get a day from the battery.

Go to Settings > Accounts & sync. Inactivate Auto-sync here. This basically means that none of your accounts will update on automatically. You will have to synd them manually. This should increase you battery time quite alot I guess.

Try this and see what difference it makes.

[#9]

Yeah, tried that (which I really don't want to do cos I use Facebook a lot), my phone dies so fast.

Phone at 10% when I took this screenshot.

Also, phone gets really hot when I play any game... like fruit ninja, which did not happen on my iPhone.

Brightness at 20% now, bravia off, xloud off...

Really not happy.

edit-

Wifi I leave on as I need it, but bluetooth is always off. GPS is on but it doesnt get used much, doesn't even show up in the %.

It's the display... do I have a bad phone?

[Uliwooly]

can you add more info on how long each app was on?