Seeing that the Nintendo 3DS went from playing for 2 1/2 to 3 hours on the go fully charge to up to 4 hours on the go fully charge thanks to Firmware 4.3.0-10U in July 24 2012, (source: user experience by me and other owners of the 3DS before & after this Firmware update) well I figure the PS Vita could also get a Battery Life increase via a Firmware Update, like the 3DS did once.

The only problem I had with Firmware 4.3 was it took away the CPU increase from 4.2 and didn't bring any of it's own, but 4.4 brought back the 4.2 CPU capacity while keeping the 4.3 battery life.

So anyways do you think Sony will give a Firmware update for the PS Vita that will not increase CPU, so the battery life will be longer instead?

To have the Netflix go from 6 hours to 8 hours is pretty sweet in my experience, so if you could decide whether or not a Vita Firmware Update were to either increase Battery Life or Functionality at least just once, what would you decide?

Would you like longer gaming & Netflix and so fort for 1 or 2 Firmware Updates by not increasing performance in Vita for the next 1 or 2 Firmware updates?

I would personally want 1 or so more Firmware Updates to increase Battery Life instead of performance in my Handheld personally now, but then go back to pure increase in performance in the rest of the Future Firmware Updates.

So what about you other Handheld Console owners?

EDIT:

Appearatly some Vita owners are reporting a 30 minute increase when comparing older firmware with newer firmware.

The 3DS has 1 hour more gaming, but it has been out for 1 year longer before the Vita ever got release.

So I'm starting to think that this is normal.......and if so, then boy did I waste my time talking about how great it would be to get battery life increase thru firmware update when this is a common thing, LOL

well I still love the fact that we can get longer battery life on any & all mobile electronics via firmware update.

But I don't see Home Consoles & Desktops needing such a thing, which seems to give them the advantage because they can purely focus on increase performance and/or whatever.

*NEW SUBJECT*

Do you think the PS Vita will ever start downloading Firmware updates and everything else in the background while gaming via a Firmware update?

And would you want any future updates to use its extra CPU to do this instead? And if so, then for how many updates?

Although I should mention that the 3DS might have been made for such a thing in Hardware, maybe.

Yeah, this is news to me too. I didn't think you could increase the battery life of a system with a firmware update :P. I bought the Nyko 3rd party battery for my 3DS and that really increased the battery life of my 3DS.

Anyway, of course Sony should increase the battery at the expense of the CPU since it already outperforms the 3DS in that area. Battery life is super important for handhelds, look at the original Gameboy it won a console war with its battery life alone lol.

@People who think you couldn't do it:
I'm thinking the FW Update made it run on less battery to where it saved more for GamePlay. Or something like that...

The 3DS had some major system inefficiency issues with the older firmware if I recall. In other words Nintendo fixed the 3DS to perform at its intended potential.

If the Vita had any such issues they would have been fixed by now.

Well, the PSP went from its CPU doing 222 MHz to 333 MHz from Firmware updates.

And seeing that the GameCube did 60 fps and the PS3 does 60 fps.

And the WiiMote made Sony create the PS Move

And the Wii U "single player asymetrical gaming" made Sony use the PS Vita as a controller for the PS3 for "single player asymetrical gaming"

And how after Iwata mention how they use to thought of idea of making a seperate 3D display for the GameCube but didn't want to charge people more for the display then the Home Console they cancel the idea (interview from January Or February 2010) to Sony making a seperate 3D display for the PS3 after that statement.

Well, I think it's realistic to see Sony doing this, now that Nintendo has done it, LOL.

I wasn't even aware that an update for the 3ds had extended the battery life by a whole hour. Battery life isn't a big issue for me, I only go on short flights etc.

This is news to me too. I didn't know they were able to improve the battery life of 3DS. Most i hear is that XL has good battery life while the smaller one suffers just like most modern portable devices to some extend.

I'll be honest, when it comes to any portable gaming if I'm using my 3ds outside it's just for 15-20 mins waiting in a cafe for my mates to come down... if they're ever not there before the battery has run out I've been forgotten about lol. Did actually forget it the other day tho while waiting for something... had to resort to playing Pandemonia on my Ngage :D had forgotten how great that game is.

It's VERY hard to understand what you're trying to say.

Would we want a firmware update to increase Vita's battery life? Of course. Who wouldn't? That doesn't mean performance can't increase though. You seem to have some sort of idea that they can tinker with the CPU/GPU inside these handhelds when in reality they can't. Games are made to run on a set of specifications and they can't underclock these components without messing up how these games run.

The only way performance can increase is if the system was underclocked to begin with and these companies remove that in some update.

Well, I heard the PS Vita use to freeze all the time, unless you bought an American PS Vita which has a higher firmware pre-install.

But how it was really done is by shortening the source code, which is what all electronics do from Computers to Smartphones to the PSP which went from 222 MHz to 333 MHz after so many firmware updates to shorten the source codes.

So really this is something all mobile electronics can do and should do if they don't have that good of a battery life.

So both the Vita & 3DS as well as all Labtops & Smartphones & Tablets always increase their CPU but this is the first time I have known an electronic of shortening the source codes without allowing the CPU to be clock higher.

The only thing I hate about the current 3DS firmware 4.5.0-10U is that the AI has become vicious in some games including a little bit in easy mode, as I have notice replaying some of my older 3D Ready games. But the AI is still fair. And StreetPass has never been faster in a Wi-Fi filled area.