4/30/2013

Why the Jelly Bean update for Sony Xperia P sucks

Or we could also say, how the latest update ruined my +Sony Xperia phone.

Friday, the 26th of April I got a notification on my Sony Xperia P that there is a new update available, finally Android 4.2 Jelly Bean can be installed officially on my phone. I was never a fan of rooting phones and getting into hacking and cracking the firmware up and down, I just want to use the phone as it came out the box, and of course doing every update that the manufacturer recommends.

And here is my problem: I did every update that the manufacturer recommended, in our case JB for Xperia P. Unfortunately for me it was one of the biggest disappointments I ever had. Instead of adding a new features to an already amazing phone I ended  up with a huge step backward.

One of the reasons I choose the +Sony Xperia™ P phone was because of the lock screen notifications, the one I saw presented here:



In other words, simple and great. I could see who called me, or who sent me an email without fully unlocking the phone or swiping from the top. Just a simple press on the side button I could see what's going on. Guess what: after the Jelly Bean update it's gone! Why would they take a good feature out? Were there people complaining about it? I don't think so. If you didn't want to see the notifications you could simply turn off the feature. The new version of Android for Xperia comes with the new lock screen from the +Sony Xperia Z which is nice if your previous phone was a Nokia 3310, but it's a huge step backwards from the earlier versions. There are two buttons on it, one for music and one for the camera, and to unlock it you just swipe "anywhere".


The new lock screen on Android Jelly Bean for Sony Xperia P

Moving on. An other great feature I liked was (yes: was) the LED notification. It blinked in different colors for different events. For. ex. if somebody sent me a message on Facebook it would blink on blue, if I had a missed cal it would blink on green. With this I didn't had to check my phone over and over again, I knew that I had a missed call even before turning on the screen. It's gone now, the LED only flashes on white, no matter what is the notification. So I even if I get a spam email selling Viagra  I get the same notification as I would for a missed call. So another great feature GONE.

The only option left for the lock screen: changing the wallpaper


Another strange modification is the background color for contacts and call list. It used to be black, now it's white. As a result it's much harder to read it in direct sunlight, even with the backlight turned all the way up, not to mention that at night it burns your eyes. Even bigger disaster is at the messages: white background with dark blue speech-balloons and black text. It's almost impossible to read a message. What were the guys who made this thinking, why is this better than a black background with some nice white letters? Also, to keep it more interesting they left the settings menu with the black background and white text, so no more continuity for UI: sometimes it's white, sometimes it's black, sometimes you can see it, sometimes not. Talking about "sometimes not": the incoming call screen is also white, the answer button is a bright green circle. Get a call on a bright sunny day and you'll find yourself looking for a shade just to see who is calling. They even changed the dark top menu bar in the album to a brighter one, so it's very hard to see the icons now.



And now for the small pieces: I set the Xperia live wallpaper as my background, it was really nice and elegant, but somebody at Sony thought that we don't need it any more, so the new firmware is missing this. It was a WALLPAPER why would they take out? Did it bother someone? It's really hard for me to understand "upgrades" like these. Instead of this I get to use the nice rainbow colored wallpaper featured on the Xperia Z, some other static wallpapers or I could use one of the live wallpapers that came with the phone, EXCEPT the one I used for 3 months.

Another feature that was nice was when you pinched out on the home screen all the widgets appeared floating and by pressing on it, it would take you to the screen where it was set. Well, this gone too. Know you have to wipe from screen to screen to find what you are looking for.

This is what happens when you try to pinch out to see all the widgets


So of course, if you ask me that should you update to the latest version of Android on your Xperia P, I would defiantly recommend not to. Not because of me and because every single feature I liked about the phone is gone, it's because there are some serious bugs in this release: for ex. the new stamina mod (hyper-super battery saving feature) kills everything, I saw people complaining that their phone wouldn't ring when it was activated, for me it drained the battery faster then when it was turned off.

If somebody at +Sony is reading: please bring back the UI of the ICS for the Xperia P. It was PERFECT! You can still give the option for the users to change their appearance to the new rainbow look from Xperia Z, but I guess many if us would prefer a legacy look. People choose Sony because they want something different, elegant, refined, something else from the boring and ridiculous Samsung design and UI. Don't let your customers down!

Right now I am looking for an option to downgrade to the offical ICS for Xperia P without rooting my phone. If anybody has an idea how to do it, please let me know in the comments.

24 comments:

  1. ICS had many bugs
    1)8mp camera flash bug
    2)Laggy Phone app and laggy system UI
    3) WiFi connectivity issues.
    4) didn't have status bar toggles
    5)Cosmic flow was the worst laggy live wallpaper ever and i don't think there was a single device which would run it smoothly(So removed)

    All these bugs resolved in JB + we now have a very smooth system UI. regarding the white background of phone and MSG app its a personal choice some may like it some may not so cant be count as a flaw.Regarding the stamina mode i think there will be an update soon to iron out any flaws(Lets hope)and after 4 full charge and discharge cycles i am getting pretty good battery life and the Stamina mode is yet to misbehave in my device. The notification in lock-screen and led issue is something Sony should work on.

    But i personally don't feel that we should avoid JB and stick to the inferior ICS.


    ReplyDelete
  2. 1) I didn't notice any camera bug, what was the problem with flash? By the way, the swipe 3D panorama is gone. It was an interesting feature, not very useful, but unique.
    2) the only bug I saw here is when I wanted to see my call log sometimes it just loaded the contact list.
    3) I didn't have any issues with the WiFi, it was working fine for me.
    4) that's right, and I was happy to see them after the update
    5) I saw it on some other phones, it was a disaster, how ever it run smoothly on mine, I don't see why the solution to fix the lag by simply removing it.

    I see that the white vs black background is something personal, but in this case it should be personal, we should have the option select how we want it.

    Maybe there are a lot of fixes, but for me it's still a step back.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree to all that you said mate, and you forgot the horrible battery stamina mode: when i fully charge it says i have 2 days and 11 hours of standby. To make a long story short, i have to charge almost every evening while on ICS i charged every 2 days..

      Delete
  3. 1)The camera bug was present in every single device. seems u didnt use the cam @ 8mp with flash it used to give half the picture black. this was the worst bug.
    2)regarding 3d panorama may be we will get it in another update.
    3)Wifi issue even i didn't have but lots of ppl had the camera and wifi issue.(Two major issues)
    My device is rooted and i have my mods to make my phone the way i want. Don't expect any help from sony in the near future.
    I would advice u to do a fresh install with SUS , wit for 10 mins after first reboot. then a factory reset. Then calibrate the battery with 4 full charge and discharge cycles. hope This helps u.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did what you suggested, made first a full backup, did a fresh instal using SUS, waited 10 minutes, the factory reset. Result: gps could not locate me anymore. I restarted the phone a few times, but no results. I waited 20 minutes for it. I did notice yesterday that it took quite a while to get my location, but this just stupid. After all this I started a restore from my backup (to get back messages, and anything else that was not stored in the cloud) and to my surprise all of the application I had installed crashed.

      Now I did a factory reset again, hopefully it will work now, but this is just stupid! I bought a phone that worked fine, I made an update that was RECOMMENDED by the manufacturer and now everything is gone.

      I will probably send it to a service to get back to ICS, if I start a flashing my phone in this mental condition I would probably just mess it up more badly.

      Delete
  4. Xperia P JellyBean Update is the most Awesome Update Ever..
    Better than ICS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i dont think so after i have updated my phone..i m experiencing the issues like call lag,phone got stuck while messaging n then had to restarted which is quite irritating :/,album sometimes stops to response..
      so if u can please help by telling me that how your update is working fine i'll really appreciate it.
      thanx

      Delete
  5. Yes!!! BETTER THAN WORSTED ICS, some features added, and fixed from some applications and tools and some is missing, like the led notication on top of the screen, unlike before when im using ICS the led is working, after i updated it from sony service center, i noticed it when theirs sms message the blue led is not working!! But all and all,Thumbs up for Jelly Bean, i hope in the next upeate, this should be perfect!!!

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  6. Some features on ICS was fixed from Jelly Bean, and other features are gone, unlike before,the led notification is working on ICS and, the battery life is much longer unlike the new jelly bean update, :( my phone battery drained much faster on this new update,

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sony Xperia P is a multi touch mobile phone works on Android v4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. Xperia P offers some good features such as 4 inch screen, Upgradeable Android 4.0 ICS, dual camera and good inbuilt memory space of 16 GB.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mate, you have simply not optimized your phone correctly. Jelly bean on Xperia P is fantastic. Granted, I have rooted my phone and uninstalled at least 15 unnecessary apps. But otherwise, it's a noticeable improvement over ICS. I, for one, can't imagine going back to ICS on my Xperia P. It's just much inferior compared to JB. The lock screen on JB is fine, LEDs do blink in color (as long as stamina mode is turned off), Set to auto brightness with backlight on, the ICS pinch on home screen feature was eye candy but pretty useless (it's faster to swipe through the screens and you can do that with just one hand), stamina mode needs a couple of days to adjust to your phone as your battery is being re-calibrated, and you do get calls and texts even if stamina mode is on.
    Besides, have you noticed the number of little improvements in JB? You will get hooked onto them once you figure them out and never go back to ICS, trust me.
    This is coming from a pro-user, so I know what I'm saying.

    Silver Scythe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You see, that is the problem, you have to fiddle it, optimize it up and down. A phone should work as it is, without the need of a pro user. Imagine if you have to change and optimize your settings on your microwave just to get to do simple things like heating your food.

      Delete
  9. Like in my post, I wouldn't recommend it. I sold my phone a few weeks ago, and he still finds new bugs (random restarts while taking a photo, videos have a strange waving etc.) The ICS has bugs but it's not that bad compared to JB.

    I would say wait until an update is released (if any) by Sony that will fix the bugs.

    I bought an iPhone 4, maybe it's not as "smart" as the Xperia, but at least works, and I don't have to "optimize my phone", get mad every time I want to make a call, and all the nonsense.

    ReplyDelete
  10. well i think this new update suck man......there is camera bug...slow processing...........no live wall paper....and ya it suck did i say that.....and ya it so slow when u want to open ur call ............aaaah how i do downgrade to ics mannnnnnnnnn...plz dont update plz plz for sony P sake

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  11. Hello Guys: I updated my phone in June 13. I just had message ( UI not responding). I tried to shut down my XPERIA-P and its been shutting down since then :D . HELP HELP HELP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      sorry but I can't help you with this issue. I moved to an iPhone after the terrible experience with this update. I knew that the old UI won't come, even if they would fix all the bugs the phone lost it's charm.

      You could try to do a soft reset:
      1. Press and hold the ‘Volume Up' key and the ‘Power' key, and count to five
      2. Wait for your device to vibrate
      3. As soon as you feel the vibration, release the keys
      4. Your device should reboot as normal

      If this doesn't help, you could ask for help on the Sony forum.

      Delete
  12. After updating my xp to jb flash player is gone
    How to download it again.?
    Is it supported after update or nt ?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Udated to JB but found bugs thats buggin me!!!
    I cannot call everything bad about the upgrade for instance the camara flash problem is resolved.Big bonus
    I like the new design accessing up to seven screens,and the open apps access from the home button, urm think thats about it....
    What I dont understand is changing things that didnt need to be changed, specific notification lights,call log,lock screen.
    They didnt even cgange the notification/ring volume, there still the same volume control for the two,argh!!!
    The phones more laggy now than ever before, the battery life is probably 50% worse an now the album wont Work!!!
    Pretty disappointed to be fair and I cant see an update improving much....

    ReplyDelete
  14. Nice post with great details. I like these wallpapers. Thanks for sharing. en ucuz iphone 5

    ReplyDelete
  15. i bought xperia p with jb pre installed a few days ago and right away the touch becomes un responsive some times for which i have to plug it in for charging which seems to resolve it and now screen lock button has also stopped workng.

    ReplyDelete
  16. you can roll back to ICS 4.0.4...using flashtool

    but I suggest you use JellyBean 4.1.2 now because its much more smooth and ALL bugs are fixed

    antutu score:

    ICS 4.0.4: 9800

    JellyBean 4.1.2: 10900!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hi, I am using xperia p since 1.2 years. Before 20 days, I have updated my phone to latest Jelly Bean version 4.1.2, my phone worked perfectly for 10 day after updating but now since yesterdayw it is functioning abnormally e.g. The home touch button at bottom of my phone is not working, notifications have gone, videos are not playing.
    Can you help me please in resolving these issues? WHY are such issue with this beautiful phone?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Andras dude you identified nicely. I am using p since 2 years and updated my p whenever the notification bar showed. Like you, I am facing these problems on my JB update. Worst laggy white call and message screen, blinking led light problem also 3d sweep panorama is missing on JB update. Today I downgraded my p to ICS version 6.1.1.B.1.75. I feel much better than JB. Its looking completely new to me. I love this P although I m using HTC ONE m7. Can you suggest me which ICS version is best for Xperia P?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Paul, no idea what to suggest, I moved from the Android to iOS and then Windows Phone. I think Android is just a big mess, with dozen versions and launchers, every phone maker sticks his nose in it and try to "improve" it. I wouldn't buy anymore a phone running Android, except maybe the Nexus line.

      Delete