Auto-Brightness & screen lock - Sony Xperia P, U, Sola, Go

Hi,
I've had my xperia S for a couple of days now and I did not notice a change in brightness depending on the ambient light. I've checked in the screen section under setting and there is no option for auto-brightness unlike my previous android phone (Nexus 1). Does the Xperia S have an auto-brightness option?
Moreover, I'm used to using the pattern lock on my previous phone. With the Xperia S, when I enable the pattern security feature, I am also presented with the normal screen lock (lock/mute). Is there a way to disable that screen?
Thank you in advance

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volgis said:
Hi,
I've had my xperia S for a couple of days now and I did not notice a change in brightness depending on the ambient light. I've checked in the screen section under setting and there is no option for auto-brightness unlike my previous android phone (Nexus 1). Does the Xperia S have an auto-brightness option?
Moreover, I'm used to using the pattern lock on my previous phone. With the Xperia S, when I enable the pattern security feature, I am also presented with the normal screen lock (lock/mute). Is there a way to disable that screen?
Thank you in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I am not mistaken no SE phone has auto-brightness, reason is nowhere to be found....
The same for the lock screen, most probably the ingenuity of the SE/S engineers stopped after creating Timescape...

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gbil said:
If I am not mistaken no SE phone has auto-brightness, reason is nowhere to be found...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is too bad, I really like the auto-brightness feature on phone. It helps improve the battery life.

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volgis said:
That is too bad, I really like the auto-brightness feature on phone. It helps improve the battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about widgets? Check them (there was something like Power Widget, or Power Control, can't remember), or you could use external aplication. I think Extended Controls or Free Power Widget got something like that. It is not in Display Settings anymore.
UPDATE:
Power Control (It has Wi-Fi, BT, GPS, Sync and Brightness buttons) Brightness should have 3 settings: Max, auto and minimum.

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Cholek3 said:
What about widgets? Check them (there was something like Power Widget, or Power Control, can't remember), or you could use external aplication. I think Extended Controls or Free Power Widget got something like that. It is not in Display Settings anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do use widgets to control the brightness manually (power widgets & beautiful widgets). Both control brightness and power widget even has an auto-brightness check box that has no effect what so ever.

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volgis said:
I do use widgets to control the brightness manually (power widgets & beautiful widgets). Both control brightness and power widget even has an auto-brightness check box that has no effect what so ever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you want to control brightness easy way try this app:
Display Brightness

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Woah, wait a minute. No auto-brightness? That can't be. The specs sure indicate there is ambient light sensor. There is indeed no "auto-brightness" box to check off, unlike with other Android devices, but I thought that this new Xperia series is supposed to work like iOS devices do. In other words, you move the slider to determine the *average* brightness of the screen, just the way an iphone or ipad does. The screen gets brighter in with more ambient light and dimmer in darkness, but the average brightness is controlled by the slider.
Most other Android devices use the slider to determine a "fixed" brightness, not an average dynamic brightness.
Are you sure the brightness doesn't change?? I find that hard to believe with an ambient light sensor on board.

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The white paper says there is an ambient light sensor.

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I just checked the user guide installed on my XPS. It mentioned about light sensor and brightness adjustment.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

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Open Phonebook and dial *#*#7378423#*#*.
Service Tests → Ambient Light Sensor
It works.
Sent from my SO-02D using XDA

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floepie said:
Are you sure the brightness doesn't change?? I find that hard to believe with an ambient light sensor on board.
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Click to collapse
I know it has a sensor, but I could not see a difference. Even when I cover the sensor with my thumb, I could not see the same change in brightness as I am accustomed too on my nexus one.
motionUS said:
The white paper says there is an ambient light sensor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not imply that there is no light sensor, just that I couldn't find the auto brighness check box and couldn't notice the change in brightness.
Kneko183 said:
Open Phonebook and dial *#*#7378423#*#*.
Service Tests → Ambient Light Sensor
It works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot! I've checked it and my light sensor works. The change in value seems minimal though. I will play around with the brightness slider to see if I notice it now.
Thanks again!