Improving the Xperia Arc Battery Life

[#1]

For those Xperia Arc owners that experience poor battery life, there are a few tips listed on the Sony Ericsson site : http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/support/phones/detailed/thebatteryrunsflattoofast/xperiaarc?cc=au&lc...

What I found out even after perfoming the actions listed on the Sony Ericsson site, the battery life was still not good. It was still draining fast.

Three actions I found to improve the battery life are :

1) Do not remove the phone from charging just after it reaches 100%. If you do that, the battery for some reason drains quickly. Leave the phone to charge a few more hours after it reaches 100%, I have noticed the battery life improves dramactically.

2) From the Settings --> Application --> Managed Applications, select those applications that you do not need to run in the background and force close it.

3)Turn off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, Background Data and Auto-Sync when not needed.

I am currently perfoming a test. I have done the following settings on my phone (In this order):

1) Force closed all applications and killed any tasks that I felt are not needed to be run in the background.

2) Ensured Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS are not running, Disabled the background data and auto sync( Settings ---> Accounts & Sync),  Display brightness to minimum.

3) Left the phone to charge overnight.

I have been monitoring my charge level on the phone so far, even after around 5.5 hours it still shows 100% charge. I cannot believe it. I will continue to monitor the phone charge level to see when it drops to 99%

Note :  I have not made any phone calls or received any yet. I did pair to my HCB-150 Bluetooth Car Speaker Phone for 20 minutes but then I turned off the Bluetooth on my phone.

Previously even when I forced closed the applications, killed the tasks I did not need and turned off bluetooth, wi-fi, GPS, background data and auto sync, the phone battery charge was till reducing from 100% to about 80% in about 3 to 4 hours.

I was thinking I could have been given a faulty battery.

Next test I wll be doing is to make some calls, surf the internet, etc, etc ie normal day to day things you do on the phone and see if the battery life is holding up with the strategy of letting the phone charge longer.

Would appreciate it if anyone has experience poor battery life and has tried to leave the phone to charge much longer and also seen the same effect of longer battery life to provide some feedback.

The reason I thought I share this is that there could be Xperia Arc owners experiencing poor battery life.

Thank you

[#2]

After around 7 plus hours, the battery charge level dropped to 99%. Not exactly sure when it dropped to 99% but it could be somewhere between 6.5hours to 7 plus hours.

Now I will let my phone charge to 100% again and leave it connected to the charger to let it charge for several hours more and then I will use the phone normally.

After that I will know if the strategy of leaving the phone longer to charge works. If it works than this is a workaround solution.

Will post another comment when I have done further tests.

[Uliwooly]

do you have 2.3.2 or 2.3.3?

[#4]

I have a LT15A model running on 2.3.2.

I was intending to upgrade to the latest available OS version but I think there are some issues with 2.3.3.

Might wait a bit longer. Anyway I will report back tomorrow on my test. I will put my phone to charge overnight and use my phone as I normally do.

I have another phone, that's why I can leave this phone "unused" for such a long time to test.

Not sure how long exactly I need to let it remain on the charger for the battery to last longer. I will over time figure this out as I will be trying different durations.

[Uliwooly]

let us know

[#6]

It appears that leaving the phone to continue to "charge" even after the 100% charge level has been attained does for some strange reason result in better battery life.

Not sure how long I need to leave it to continue charging. Anyway I put my phone to charge when I went to bed and disconnected it from the charger when I got up in the morning.

It had been charging for around 7 to 8 hours.

After unplugging the phone from the charger and during the next 8 hours plus, I did the following :

- Enabled push e-mail. Open, read and sent some e-mails.

- Made and received several calls, totalling about 20 - 25 minutes.

- Enabled bluetooth for about 40 minutes while I was driving

- Browsed various internet pages for around 30 minutes on the UMTS/HSPA 850Mhz network.

- Browsed various internet pages for around 40 minutes on Wi-Fi. This also included about 10 minutes of Flash videos

- Enabled GPS for around 45 minutes.

- Enabled Background data to update some of my Android apps from the Android market for about 10 minutes

Some other settings :

- I left the phone on minimum brightness. Enabled a brighter setting every now and again when needed through the power control widget.

- Disable the Mobile Bravia Engine. This can always be enabled when you want to take photos or video clips.

The charge level : 77%

According to the battery use figures, the main power user is the display. ie around 42% (even with the brightness set to minimum), next was

Voice calls : 17%,

Cell standby :13%,

Opera mobile : 11%

Phone Idle : 9%

Moxier Mail : 2%,

Compass : 2%,

Android OS : 2%

Wi-Fi : 2%

It appears leaving the phone to charge longer once it reaches 100% charge, does help to improve battery life.

Previously, my percentage charge level would have been in the low 30s or high 20s..

In conclusion, the battery life overall for the Arc does not seem good as you will need to charge it every second day.

If you talk a lot on the phone and browse internet pages longer, you  will have to charge it everyday or even twice a day if you a talk for  many hours.

I am somewhat dissapointed. There were quite a number of discussions about Android OS v2.3 being more efficient with power use. Sony Ericsson should have used an OLED display as this would definitely help in power usage.

My next test is to leave the phone to charge an extra 2 hours to see if that is all that is required. I am trying to find what the minimum required extra "charging" time is required to attain longer battery life.

Of course as time goes by, the battery performance will naturally degrade anyway.

[#7]

I've been tossing up between the Arc and Play.

One of the things I was worried about was the Arc seemed to have a lower battery life than the Play.

But, it seems like the Arc can generally get through an entire day on a charge?

If the Arc gets through a standard day's usage okay... that should be sufficient.

It's better than a lot of the reports I've heard about other smartphones (particularly Android phones)          .

[#8]

Well two main differences between the Play and the Arc.

The Arc is a better camera phone than the Play.

The Play on the other hand is more suited to game playing on a handset. It has a slighly smaller screen size but has a front facing camera which the Arc in my opinion should have.

It all depends which is more important to you ie a gaming phone or a camera phone I suppose

[Uliwooly]

you should update to 2.3.3 try the LT15i firmware on your LT15a, I did and its really fast, you can trust me on that it works just fine

http://talk.sonyericsson.com/thread/16824

[#10]

Thank you for the suggestion but is the firmware for LT15i exactly the same as for LT15a?

I intentionally purchased the LT15a model as I need the UMTS/HSPA 850MHz frequency band.