Sony Xperia SP destroyed after 4.3 update - a desperate user final thoughts.

[Arvalas]

I have bought XPERIA SP at DECEMBER... almost perfect phone with Jellybean 4.1.2 .... everything was going extremely fast and smooth, after the UPDATE to Android 4.3 my phone is completely USELESS... literally nothing is working without LAG , LAG , LAAAAGGGG !

The leds dont work , the call button works after a lot seconds... , walkman turns off by itself , the ram is depleted only 100mb free , the phone generally lags anytime in anyway! , about the half of default applications come up with the "Its not responding (Wait , Close , Report) " error

This is the last time i give my money and trust in SONY . This is the biggest failure purchase i have ever done... 299 euros at the garbage...

PS. Oh some info --> Called sony and we made REPAIR by Companion , NOTHING! , Called sony again we did Fresh re-install via SUS ... NOTHING .... went to SONY SERVICE and after 3 days they gave me the same phone with the SAME BUGGY software with the same EXACT problems... because its not ANDROID's fault BUT ROM's fault .

All the problems here are with new clean updated phone via SUS and factory reset after that so nothing can go wrong,,, but NOTHING .

And still nothing like a rollback to 4.1 to repair our devices or a new software update that resolves these issues after 2 months of silence from SONY. I know because i am a programmer that takes a lot of hours to debug and make new update from scratch but its not my concern i demand my phones integrity to be as like it was at the beginning.

I cant do something else , i'm just feeling unlucky and sad because i lost a lot of money . (i'm trying to remember the 2 months of the phone's brilliant usage with android 4.1.2 )

[Arvalas]

i'm trying to find the .ftf file in Xda and i cannot find it . I found CENTRAL EUROPE ftf here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2315506 but i'm from Greece ... is this the correct .ftf ? I'm trying to post in XDA and ask for Greece unbranded ftf but they dont let me because i'm new and i have less than 10 posts... for crying out LouD! help me!

[Arvalas]

Any help ???? Should i flash the CENTRAL EUROPE version of .ftf?

[daverawle]

Hi,

a Greek unbranded ftf is available here

http://tinyurl.com/oj3ynsq

at the bottom of the page.

I initially downgrades to 4.1 but couldn't live with the poor wi-fi so used the Generic Swiss ftf for 1.201 even though I'm in the UK. it "turned the 'phone around" so much so that I've bought another X-SP for my wife (they are really cheap here because of the bad name the upgrade gave them). Fantastic value if you can install the bug-fix.

Dave

Edit... should add that the ftf is for c5303, don't know if it would work on c5302

[ParaSense1]

Im from greece to file m... i use central europe ftf you can flash it

[Arvalas]

Thank you for your answers . Did you unlocked bootloader to downgrade or it doesnt need? I will flash tomorrow .

[blackbox]

You don't need to unlock the bootloader or root to flash a Sony ROM.

Instructions here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2658952

[BeeMermaid]

Surely Sony can offer a better solution than downgrading the software. Should they not be making sure it works? My phone is about to be bounced off a wall........it's so laggy and unresponsive.

Hopefully Sony can offer a proper solution.

[blackbox]

I'm surprised at the range of experience people have had with these two updates. After the first boot, then letting Play get through all the app updates and another reboot it's worked pretty much the same on all 3 firmware versions. You get the occassional lag and the odd app crash when it runs out of RAM, but it's a midrange device that doesn't have a ton of RAM or blazingly fast processor.

Despite the Antutu scores, I still think 4.1.2. is marginally the best performing version so far. I would have no problem sticking with it for a while.

With hindsight, I think what Sony should have done was fix the serious stuff affecting lots of users (wi-fi, no 4G) and issue a quick fix for 4.1.2., then went away and concentrated on KitKat as a final update. As it is we're edging closer to the end of support date with 2 firmware updates that have not gone down well and KitKat looking less and less likely. None of this makes me want to make my next phone another Sony.

[staticcharge]

I have to say, for a bug fix, this update is worse than leaving the thing alone in the first place. 

Battery usage is embarrassing, it's messed up my smart watch as well.

Lag is so bad that I can barely respond to calls before the caller hangs up.

It keeps vibrating randomly at me for no apparent reason

Screen locks up black for ages - probably just more lag

Amazon apps have become embedded somehow, and keep doing thing with out asking.

Full reset locks the phone up with the Sony logo hanging for hours

Can't restart the thing, can't hard reset it. What the heck have they done to the software on my phone?

[Arvalas]

FINALLY after weeks of dissapointment and sadness i finally flashed to 4.1.2 and now i have my phone back 100% Wifi is good by the way same as 4.3 version. And for 4g .... pfff i dont really care. Seriously i'm very happy for my phones ressurection.

By the way i tried to make ftf from my SUS files but the advanced tab is grey out i dont know why ...

Guys you should really flash to 4.1.2 !!!