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Sony was one of the first OEMs to focus on designing water-resistant phones, but they weren't always resistant enough. Consumers were brushed off by Sony when their water-resistant phones and tablets showed evidence of water damage. Now, there's a class action lawsuit wrapping up that could result in affected Sony owners getting a 50% refund on their devices.
Last week, Sony had a nice gift for a large portion of the owners of their relatively recent devices: Marshmallow! That was following up on March updates to their newest releases. Still, a few were left out. The wait should be over soon, if not already, for owners of the Z3 Tablet Compact.
Google has shown off what's in Android 6.0. Factory images and over-the-air updates are popping up for Nexus devices. That means the time is ripe for smartphone makers to announce when they're going to bring Marshmallow to their devices.
Since the Team Win Recovery Project produces one of the best custom recoveries out there, many of you probably already have it installed on a couple of your devices. But you still have some, like Sony's sleek Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and Samsung's old budget-friendly Galaxy Ace 3, that you haven't been able to install TWRP on. Well, that has changed. Support has arrived for both devices.
To address several relatively minor problems and requests, Sony's Xperia Z2 and Z3 devices will be getting an update to their firmware. They will remain on 5.0 Lollipop, which speaks to the fact that these are mostly optimizations rather than wholesale changes. The headlining feature is probably the fact that the app switcher now has a close all button, but there are some other goodies as well.
Xperia owners, watch out. Lollipops are raining from the sky and smashing straight into your screens. If you welcome this phenomenon, don't do anything. These lollipops have heat-seeking sensors and will find your devices wherever they lay. If you prefer KitKat, you can swat the intruders away, but you'll never get to experience the future changes in store for your Android device.
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- This information has been confirmed. Sony Mobile updated its blog posting from yesterday to add all three devices to the list and announce that updates will start with the Nordics and Baltics.
Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, Z2, and Z2 Tablet owners around the world may soon have a reason to smile. According to XperiaBlog, Sony has started to roll out Android 5.0 to these three devices in various regions. This news comes shortly after the Japanese manufacturer started pushing out Lollipop to the Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact yesterday.
CyanogenMod supports a few new devices today, all of them Sony. Just head over to the CM download section and you can get nightly builds for the Xperia Z3, Z3 Compact, and Z3 Tablet Compact with LTE (that's Scorpion). This follows the WiFi version of this tablet getting support just a few days ago.
Xperia Z3 Tablet owners with a custom ROM addiction may be happy to know that CyanogenMod now has the hook up. If you're excited by this news, you can head over to CyanogenMod's crib, knock on the door, and ask for scorpion_windy. Just be careful. Scorpion_windy might not be in the mood.
Over the last week there have been a rash of reports that folder with labels mentioning the Chinese search engine Baidu have been appearing on phones. The most obvious and prominent examples have been Sony's new Xperia Z3 series of phones and others running KitKat. Many users (and media outlets) jumped to the conclusion that these files were evidence of spyware, perhaps bolstered by recent and more credible reports of digital spying and hacking linked to the Chinese government.
If you live in a real-life version of the latest James Bond or Spider-man flicks, where absolutely every piece of electronics everywhere is made by Sony, then we've got good news: the PS4 Remote Play app is now available for download. This lets the Xperia Z3, Z3 Compact, and Z3 Tablet Compact use a PlayStation 4 controller and super-fast streaming video to play PlayStation 4 games over a home Wi-Fi network. That should make up for all the crazy supervillains swarming around your house.
We had a chance to take a few minutes with Sony's latest and greatest in Berlin earlier today, and I have to say: we left impressed. While the company's smartphones have had basically zero market penetration in the US (aside from on T-Mobile), the Z1 and Z2 were both fine flagship devices when stacked up against their contemporary competitors.
Tucked into the flurry of news around Sony's trio of new Xperia Z3 devices was the fact that they'll be the first non-gaming gadgets to use the company's proprietary PlayStation 4 Remote Play system. The flagship Xperia Z3, high-powered "mini" Xperia Z3 Compact, and the 8-inch Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact will be able to stream PS4 games and play them across a home Wi-Fi network later this year. The PS4 can already stream gameplay to the PlayStation Vita.