More than a year ago, I purchased the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (SO-01B) from a little shop near my house. As I mentioned in a previous post, I really enjoyed the promises of the phone, but was disappointed with the performance. Slow to start, laggy, and running Android version 1.6 when version 2.1 had already been released to the market.
Fast forward to today. Despite my orignal complaints (or in spite of its shortcomings) I continued to use the phone. And use it, and use it. At first, I found that I was carrying around both my trusty Garakei (local indigenous DoCoMo Panasonic slide phone) and my bright shiny, battery consuming 1st generation Android SE Smartphone. But with the purchase of an additional battery, I left the old phone at home to play bedside alarm clock.
The phone picked up some new tricks when they updated to dual touch and then Android version 2.1. Things improved slightly, but I still longed for a better phone…without having to pay for another device.
In the meantime, I picked up an iPad and then an iPad2. (What does this have to do with the Xperia you may ask….I’ll get to that in a minute).
And while I played with these devices, I found that I enjoyed the iPod/iPad/iPhone interface, but missed some of the Android features.
Specifically, the i-series of toys respond very well to the user and the experience feels polished and smooth. Contrast that with my Xperia Android experience where I wasn’t always sure if my inputs were recognized. Taking a photo with the iPad2 (yes, we have used it to take photos) was a quick affair. The app started up quickly, and the shutter response was decent for a multi-purpose device. The Xperia on the other hand, made me wait, and wait to start the app, then wait 3 seconds from shutter to photo.
OK, so it sounds like the iPad wins right? Well not so fast….you see, the reason the Xperia seems to take so long is it is trying push a lot more data through a little pipe. The photos on the screen of the iPad look great…but load them up on a computer and the low pixel density is all too apparent. The slower Xperia on the other hand turned out far higher quality images on my computer. Tough to call. For expedient, the iPad, for quality-the Xperia. hmmmm.
Next was the home screen. I discovered lots of things about the iPad home screen, screen copy, and how to move icons. Same for the Android. But the widgets I really liked on Android. I could see my DoCoMo phone bill and the yen rate at a glance…without the need to start an app. And I could put icons at the bottom and top of the screen with nothing in the middle. iPod only allows moving between screens, but no control over placement on the screen.
(Oops, This is digressing into a comparisons of systems which I did not originally intend to do…oh well). I am trying to explain how I feel about my Xperia. So back to the task at hand.
With these new toys, I found that each had its place in my life. But I needed a way to reduce monthly fees. I put my EMobile stick on a freeze plan (don’t use it and the fee is 0 yen, use it and the fee is lots…but available) and kept my iPods on WiFi mode.
Now I needed a way to make a hotspot. EMobile advertised this feature on their phones. AU did the same. But could I have this feature on my current, (ancient) phone without actually paying for a new device? hmmm.
And now, this is where my story begins. Here is the meat that I have been developing through the words above. You see, I had heard of this thing called “flashing”. As a EE major, I had much experience “flashing” EEPROMs with little programs to energize an 8086 processor to do simple tasks. I had flashed hardware with critical company provided updates. But I had never attempted to overwrite the code on my phone with unauthorized versions of software. While the phone was under warranty, I was frankly, too scared. (This is my 4th physical unit…I had 3 warranty approved replacements!) I was not about to risk voiding my warranty…and then….the warranty period expired, and I had those iPads to feed….
So I started looking around for a 2.3 version of Android to slide into my phone. Turns out I was in luck! SE actually released a version of Android in the 2.3.3 flavor for the Xperia line! But I was out of luck because DoCoMo decided not to implement this version. Probably because it would cut into sales of the Arc and Acro….Makes business sense to me…but I am not here to keep DoCoMo selling new phones. I already pay them plenty every month….they’ve got me….what I wanted was that new and shiny 2.3.3. But how to get it?
I know, I know, you either have done this and am laughing at my trepidation, or you too are wondering if this is something that you are capable of handing. Well, in a word, if you have patience, you are more than capable of doing this! It was a snap..took some trial and error, but wow! In retrospect, it was flash bang easy!
The most stressful part? Trying to download the Official Generic ROM from these new and clever download sites. All the download sites are pretty clever…you pay to get speedy download, or wait for the slow download that is usually corrupted. (i.e. the wrong size file because only part of the file made it through…here is where I installed a hash-checker (or something like that) to check the hash sums to make sure the file was the one the author intended.)
And after I got the entire file to download properly (a generic SE Android 2.3.3 ROM) and the XDA developer provided Flasher software (I have to go send him some donation love!), it was as simple as drag, drop, flash, reboot, and start my 2.3.3 experience. (Well there were a few specific steps, but it was really simple…nothing complicated and nothing tricky. Just drag some files to a folder, turn off the phone, plug it in while holding the return button…and then rebooting….really that easy!) Of course, I’ve left out the fact that my data was all completely wiped…not a big deal since I used a backup program to back up my apps, and Google already has all my phone book information stored on their servers…and MailDroid has a feature that saves all the e-mail settings…so all in all…the only real pain was reinstalling everything with the backup software and resetting all the options and logging back into google…)
And then, while I did that and then let the phone rebuild the icons or whatever it was doing (it was slow for a while); it took a while to catch up, but when it did….the overall experience improved, the phone felt sleeker and faster, and MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, I now had the ability to turn my phone into a Wireless WiFi hotspot!
If you already have this capability on your phone, you know how awesome it is to not require a separate bill to power up another internet device. So now, instead of trying to type this blog on that super tiny smartphone with the lousy tiny on-glass keyboard, I can type with a real keyboard onto my iPad (Apple wireless keyboard for those wondering…)
And now, as I sit on the Shinkansen, with my Xperia in my holster, broadcasting WiFi…I can type in style an relative comfort.
There were some other features with 2.3.3 that seemed to have been borrowed from the iPhone…the bottom line of the screen now has a permanent dock for four apps…I stick mail, camera, e-mail and phone down there….and the remainder of my screens are mostly empty since the app drawer is much better laid out: I can now sort my apps by alphabetical order, most recently installed, or by use…or even in any order I like. Way better than the stock SE Android app drawer!
The camera did not seem to change. Same 6-7 seconds to start up and 3 seconds from push to photo. But, if my phone is in silent mode, no camera sounds! Whew! (Japanese law requires phones to always make a sound when taking a photo…weirdos taking photos when they shouldn’t have started that rule….) I hate the noise they make and always covered up the little hole to reduce the sound…but now with the new ROM, it can be silenced. Nice. Just like a regular point and shoot.
There might be other cool features that are part of this new Android (like being able to use Adobe Flash 10.2) but I really haven’t noticed any other differences. The real key is HOTSPOT!
With this new flashed version of Andriod, the promise is getting closer to reality. I still think the i-toy version of the operating system is a smoother and prettier looking interface, but I can’t complain as loudly about my Xperia anymore. I love it, warts and all.
It is working great for me and hope the experience continues to get better (without requiring new hardware!)
The phone works great, the screen looks great, hooked up with my JawBone JAMBOX it sounds great, and life is good again.
Cheers and tweet ya later!
@Aloha_Dylan
P.S. anyone know how to use the Shinkansen WiFi wihtout paying an additional fee? I have a home OCN account, NTT hikari fiber, and DoCoMo phone…surely someohow, I can get some WiFi under the guise of an existing customer?!
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