Category: Sony Xperia XZ

Over the past few months, Sony has been making great strides in keeping their phones up to date with major Android releases as well as the monthly Android Security Update patches.  This month it would seem is no exception.  The Japanese company has rolled out the December security update to the Xperia XZ, Xperia XZs and the Xperia X Performance.

The update is firmware build 41.3.A.2.24 for all three devices and the update is hitting unlocked phones first as you likely suspect.  The update is small, less than 200MB, so it is a quick install but does require a reboot of your phone once you have it downloaded and installed.

Following through on their commitment to get Android Oreo updates out to various devices, Sony has begun rolling out the latest Android build to the Sony Xperia XZ and the XZs today.  The build, version 41.3.A.0.401 for those keeping score at home, comes in at just over 1.2GB in size and brings all the goodness of Oreo to these two devices as well as some Sony specific features.

Xperia Actions comes with this update and it gives recommendations on the best configuration for the device based on scenarios.  They have also added Smart Text Selection which suggests actions based on the content of selected text.

Due to the size of the upgrade, it is only going to be available to download via WiFi and you will want to make sure you have at least 70% of battery life remaining prior to updating (or have your phone charging via AC).  The update will take about 15 minutes to complete including a reboot after it is done.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the Sony Xperia XZ or the Xperia X Performance.  Sony has released the Android Nougat 7.1.1 update for both of these phones and it is already rolling out to users.  The updated build is 41.2.A.2.199 for both devices and along with the improvements that come with 7.1.1, the April Android Security patch is also in this build.

The big change with 7.1.1 is the support for app shortcuts.  This allows you to long press an icon and be able to get to a particular part of an app (for example, in Gmail you can tap-and-hold to start composing an email in a particular account).  The problem is that the Sony launcher doesn’t support app shortcuts, at least not yet.  If you are using a launcher that does support them on either of these phones (like Nova Launcher), then you will get to use the new feature.  Also, the 7.1.1 update brings Unicode v9 emoji to these devices.

Just a day after releasing Android Nougat for the Xperia X Performance, Sony has dropped their update to the latest version of Android for the Xperia XZ today.  The update is build 39.2.A.0.327 and is rolling out to unlocked variants of the phone today.  If you have the dual-SIM variant of the phone, the XZ Dual, you too should be seeing the update shortly.  While the update has been released, it could take a few days before everyone sees the update hit their phone.  You can always manually check for the update by going to Settings>About Phone>Software Update.

The update weighs in at just over 1GB so you will need to make sure that you are on Wi-Fi when you download it.  Once it is downloaded, you can expect about a 30 minute upgrade period where you phone will be rebooted and Android Nougat will be installed.