Last Updated on April 10, 2017 by Mathew Diekhake
The Sony 18.1.A.1.21 firmware update is rolling out to D5103 smartphones in Europe. We hear a Russian accent in the YouTube video that shows the new software running. We do know that this is a marginal update that brings in bug fixes and small performance tweaks to enhance the operating system over the previous version. It still stays in the Android 4.4.2 KitKat name and carries all of the same features you already love. They include the transparent navigation and status bars, white status icons across the top bar for WiFi, signal strength and battery life, enhanced landscape keyboard with improvements, new color emoji, full screen movie and album art from the lock screen, wireless cloud printing and more.
Users can wait for the notification to arrive over the air and start the installation that way or they can download and install it using the flash tool. Remember to back up all important data such as the phone contacts list, market apps, SMS and MMS texts, music files, video and picture galleries before starting. If you install away from the WiFi network using the mobile data it may have high traffic. Traffic results in higher chances of requiring a factory reset which will wipe the phone’s data if not stored. You should understand that no data is lost if everything works well unless you are flashing back to stock firmware from running a custom ROM with root access.
There are loads of useful applications available from Google Play to assist you with backing up all the personal data, including Helium, Titanium and SMS backup for those pesky text messages that are so hard to store.
The T3 starts with 4.4 KitKat and with some luck will receive the fresher Android L 5.0 software in the new year. We expect the first load of smartphones and tablets under the Nexus name to begin seeing the OTA in early November. From there, other manufacturers and phone carriers will have the chance to slowly start the release of their handsets too.
We know that the T3 is a nice mid-ranger with a Big display, High-resolution display, High-resolution camera, Quad core processor, Fast 4G mobile data support, NFC and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 8928 system chip. The SoC is meaningful since we know they run in the 803’s for the top of the range smartphones. That means the mobile here likely won’t see the fresh firmware as soon as the big names.