My first Android phone was Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V, and oh boy! I really loved the skin (aka Xperia UI), which was miles ahead of stock Android back then. Even after the separation from Ericsson, Sony engineers commited a bunch of codes to AOSP to improve the support for custom theming.

The Pie based skin of Xperia phones are quite close to the vanilla Android, yet there are a number of handy tweaks here and there for better user experience. For example, they can easily handle the ultra long 21:9 display in phones like Xperia 1 with clever UI element positioning.

xperia_1_black_front_back
Xperia 1

Talking about Xperia 1, Sony’s 2019 flagship was announced in February but launched in June. The Japanese OEM integrated a stunning 4K ‘CinemaWide’ display panel with the phone, which is fueled by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC.

The phone also features a trio of 12 MP camera sensors in the rear panel along with a side mounted fingerprint sensor. Sony released July security patches (build 55.0.A.2.314) for the dual SIM model of Xperia 1 (J9110) at the beginning of last month. Another build is now available on Sony OTA server.

xperia_1_55.0.a.6.16_forum
Source

As you can see, the change in the version number is pretty big: from 55.0.A.2.314 to 55.0.A.6.16. The OTA is reportedly available on Russian and Ukrainian Xperia 1 units, while some single SIM (J8110, J8170) carrier branded models are getting it as well.

Although Sony did not share a sane changelog, we can confirm that the new build comes with August security patches. It’s good to see the steady flow of updates from Sony.

xperia_1_55.0.a.6.16_build.prop
Snippet from the build.prop of the new build (Source)

As a matter of fact, Xperia 1 is not the only Sony phone to get the August update. The whole Xperia XZ2 family of phones are are reportedly getting new OTAs with up-to-date security patches.

xperia_xz2_premium_52.0.A.8.131_ota
Xperia XZ2 Premium August update prompt (Source)

FYI, Xperia XZ2 was the flagship series from Sony in 2018. All three phones (regular XZ2, XZ2 Premium and XZ2 Compact) are powered by Snapdragon 845 SoC, while parameters like screen size and battery capacity are making them distinct from each other.

xperia_xz2_compact_front_back
Xperia XZ2 Compact

The new update for Xperia XZ2 family is carrying the version number 52.0.A.8.131, which is another major increment from the July update (52.0.A.8.107).

Judging from the series of updates, other Sony phones will eventually receive new builds infused with August patches very soon.

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Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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