The Sony Xperia M is receiving a new version of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with the build number of 15.4.A.1.9, and it follows on from the previous 15.4.A.0.23 OTA firmware. The Xperia M is a smartphone that started off with Android 4.1 and it skipped 4.2 and went direct to 4.3, so users are very familiar with the features that they are currently using. With that in mind, you’ll know that there isn’t many new features, here again, because we are still on the same number software, but there are performance improvements that give an enhanced user experience and more.
The other additions worth noting are better battery life that I will go into deeper detail about in a moment and Sony Xperia Themes. It’s common we see battery draining as a symptom after an update that was originally designed to fix several problems. Even though, those past issues are fixed the battery drain creeps in slowly causing havoc. The Xperia M comes with a 1750 mAh capacity that offers 10 hours talk-time, 20 days stand-by time and if you were to use the 3G it drops down to 9 hours talk-time and 18 hours stand-by time. Those are less than stellar numbers and although we know this is not a top-end handset we still want the power to last enough to see us through the day. Many of you would have been struggling with that, and hopefully this update will put you back on track.
The update namely 15.4.A.1.9 is an over the air release rolled out by Sony and it will arrive as a system notification for all users. It is a fresh release that just started two days ago so it can still be several weeks before it finishes rolling around to everyone. There’s no way of foretelling when it will come for you because the company relies on data that tells it when you purchased the handset and what country you are residing in now. It then calculates that through all partners and issues a time but because you don’t know the other owners it’s difficult to imagine when it is coming for you. If you do notice other people in your country getting it already then there’s a chance, you won’t be far behind. To check by hand, you can always go to Settings > About phone > Software updates > System updates and check if it is there and waiting. Alternatively if you want to check the software you are currently running navigate to Settings > About phone > Build number / version.
There is no official announcement on the size of this installment, but judging by what we can see it won’t be a big file. Our guess is well under 100 MB, so there ‘re no worries installing it using the mobile data. However, we always do recommend using a stable WiFi connection instead so that there’s a better chance of success without the download being interrupted, and it saves the mobile data which is more expensive. Sony have included the side-note of if users are planning on upgrading to this software using WiFi that the latest version of the Update Center application needs to install first. You can read more up on that here from the official blog post.
It’s my recommendation that you take the extra time to make a backup of all personal data that is being stored on the smartphone before starting. We do not expect this official firmware to create data loss of any sort. However, it can happen on the odd occurrence especially if you are tackling this with the mobile network. Take the time to backup the call logs, SMS texts, photos, videos music and anything else you can think of such as contacts. You can back up the app on your phone by using Helium available from the Google Play Store.
The Xperia M only comes with 4 GB of built-in storage, and that only has a maximum of 2 GB user storage after the Android OS is taking up the rest of the space. That means that many people will be short of memory to backup files. Luckily there is storage expansion options such as microSD, microSDHC that can hold as much as 32 GB on a single card. All of you should have no problem making copies of your contacts and other data.