Life Support for ageing Sony Xperia Z1 battery

[TipRex]

Hi,

I have had my Sony Xperia Z1 for around 2.5 years now. I am still very happy with its general performance, powerwise it is more than enough for my usage scenario. I usually use it for social media, news and listening to music. However, recently I have been noticing the symptoms of age increase... The touchscreen isn't as responsive as it once was, the cover for the charging port has come off long ago (sellotape works surprisingly well to hold in place) and a month ago the back panel has actually bent out of the frame.

I don't really mind all that, I'm planning to get a new phone in the summer anyway, I just need it to work until then for my not very heavy daily tasks.

Sadly, recently, the most dreaded things about ageing of a phone has become more and more noticable:Narcolepsy!

My phone is simply dying on me even when there should be like 70% battery remaining. Sometimes, if I give it some time, I can restart it and have it work fine... Here are a couple of exemplary incidences:

 

I was in a stadium trying to send out some braggy snaps over cellular data. I had charged my phone particularly for this occasion, left with 100% battery. I filmed some stuff in the stadium, 1.5h later, with a lot more than 0% remaining (probably about 60%-80%), my phone dies on me. I try again later on and can restart the phone as long as I try to keep the power usage at a minimum. With cellular data off, I could keep it going without cellular data enabled for another ~hour. Then I tried to go online again, 5min later my phone completely died. 

 

I went for a walk. Admittedly it was about -2 degrees C outside but I also had about 75% battery remaining. I listened to a podcast over Bluetooth and with cellular data enabled. Suddenly, with the phone in my pocket, it turned itself off. About half an hour later I restarted it the first time and it suddenly displayed 64% battery remaining. I started the podcast again, start snapchat, then it died again. I restarted it immediately (warming my phone with my hands constantly, dunno if that did anything) and it displayed 49% remained, with the number dropping by one about every 2 seconds. I connected my headphones, started the podcast, left cellular data off. It worked fine for another half hour, the battery display stabilised in the mid 30%. Then I tried to send a snap again and it died. A couple of minutes later I could restart it and listen to my podcast on 1% in stand-by with BT on and data off for the rest of my walk (maybe another 20min).

 

This was just to illustrate my usage scenarios, hopefully showing off possible symptoms. Now, my solution is to buy a cheap, small external battery that I can take everywhere and use this as a functioning battery. Kind of like adult diapers, guaranteeing function where the original part failed.

But is there anything else I can do? Is this just part of the normal ageing process? Why is my phone losing its shit when the battery is lower than 80% and I use my phone more heavily (as in both BT and data) while there is no dip in performance? Is the power output inconsistent? A few months ago, I could still depend on the battery, no matter how full it was, could still turn on data and GPS and all that and have it run consistently. What happened?

 

I'm not really expecting any solutions apart from the external battery / new phone... But just out of interest, what do you think is failing here? Is it the battery cells just dying one by one? Is it the battery controller messing up?

Thanks for any insights