New Xperia Ray but many steps backwards. My cons about new smartphones

[#1]

Hello everyone,

  a few weeks ago I bought a brand new Xperia Ray and, apart from some connection problem with my wifi network, I'm happy with this purchase.

  But I want to point out what still makes me regret my old K530i that after 3 ½ years I had to change just because I have physically damaged the antenna and not beacause is too old to work.

Here are my cons about the Ray and all smartphones in general:

  1. Limited battery: it is amazing to think that these new smartphones to cost, some, like a laptop but the battery last only from morning to late evening. And I always disconnected bluetooth and gps when I don't need them, I'm not playing video games or I'm always with the cell phone in hand. From what I know all smartphones are so weak with batteries, right?

  2. No Video Calling: another bad point. Is possible that my old k530i makes video call and not my brand new Ray!? I've read that is an Android's problem but is still a step backward...hard to believe that I can make videocalls just via Skype or similar. Bad bad point.

  3. Alarm activated only with cellphone on: I'm one old fashioned who like to switch off the phone during nightime but now I can't because I'm forced to keep it on in airplane mode, because otherwise the alarm clock will not work.

  4. PC Companion getting useless: the old version let me organize agenda, contacts lists, sms, transferring files and make backups...now with the new version (updated automatically when I connect my Ray) doesn't let me all those really importants things...why this another step backwards? Pc Companion is useless now!

  These are the most obvious ... maybe I'll add more but you also tell me what you think.

  Hello

[Markus1 · Accepted solution]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

1. The battery performance is probably the first and also biggest difference you'll notice going from a phone like K530i to a smartphone. One day is not necessarily bad. It depends on a lot of different things. Have a look at this thread so see what can be done:
http://talk.sonymobile.com/message/154243#154243

2. True. This is not a standard feature in Android. Video chat is supported, native support for video calling is not. So apps like Google talk and Skype must be used to get this.

3. True. Android does not support this. When the phone is turned off the alarm will not work like it does in K530i. Flight mode is the closest thing to turning it off you will get if you want the alarm to still work.

4. I would not call it a step backwards. I'd say forward or sideways. You're meant to synchronize data like contacts, calendar etc over the air. If you setup your Google account you can sync these automatically without having to connect it to a computer. As soon as you add a new contact it gets synced to your Google account (if you have autosync on of course). There are also a lot of different apps available if you wish to create local backups. Have a look at My Backup if you're interested in this.

If setup 'correct', you can basically throw away this phone, buy a new Android handset, setup the same accounts and automatically get all contacts, calendar etc. back to the phone in a few seconds.

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[#3]

Hello Markus and many thanks for your quick reply.

About the first three points I've just to accept that and find another way to avoid the problem...just about the video calls I'm really upset: I've free video calls offer from my telephone company and I can't use that..and you know that making videocalls from Skype use a lot of data (consider that I've just 50 mb daily).

Do you know if in the future Android will solve this?

About the point 4 you're right, I can handle all the contacts and calendar (and also make local backups) but what about the SMS ?

Before I was able to write sms in a faster way from my PC and make backups of them all from Pc Companion...I've to install another app to do the same thing?

[#4]

Another little thing:

- the phone often make notification sound and flash with purple light but when I check there are no notifications, no sms or similar.

I've disabled all the sounds from facebook or email apps and I really don't understand why the phone still make sounds when there is nothing to notificate.

Thank you for help in advance.

[Markus1]

If Google/Android choose to add native video call support I'm pretty sure we will go for that change too. Right now I have no idea if that will happen though.

SMS's cannot be synced over the air as far as I know, but with My Backup you can include them in the backups you create.

You can try My Phone Explorer. It's a 3rd party program which we really don't support but I know it's helped many user looking for a PC program for messaging with their Android phone.

www.fjsoft.at. With this you can both sync messages locally and also use it to send new messages (or reply if you wish).

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[Markus1]

Have you installed any 3rd party apps that might be doing this? Could it be the phone notifying about low battery?

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[#7]

Thank you again.

Is not a battery notification and maybe it depends from an email app that doesn't work well...I will try to unistall some apps and see if I solve the problem; I will try to use that app about the Sms.

Please, say to the Sony company to put pressure on Google so the next version of Android will support the videocalls