Database Develop

[Q] Newbie, first android phone

Hello friends, i am new here, i bought xperia sp 5303 last week from a friend, it's unlocked, updated firmware from update center to the last version and did factory rested from settings to delete all my friends data.....
before you start reading, this is long post, please proceed if you intend to help a helpless newbie like me that has a lot of questions and problems with his first first andoird phone
a week has passed and discovered a lot of problems with this phone i hope you friends here can help me with :
first before the questions, i suspect that al these problems are beceause of the orange modified firmware 4.3 207, it has countless orange apps interfering with sony stock apps, and make the phone useless without the original operator simcard(orange france) but the phone is imported, so we have a different orange here and it doesn't work with the integrated apps.
1) battery back up is very bad, about 2.5 to 3 hours when browsing on 3g and playing 15 minuts subway surrfer. after long night charging, if i plug off my phone in the morning from 100% it decreased to 99% in less than a minute, on 3g browing it decreases at the rate of 1 to 2% per minute at the first 10% then at the rate of 1% per minute approximately....
2) wifi range is awful compared to other phones, my symbian phones has much better range, and more stable wifi. Signal drops from full to one bar ( note that the router is about 4-5 meters away) if i go further than 10 meters, it i=will start disconnecting from almost full signal to one bar, then disconnects, and i have to onnect it manually from wifi settings. this is a nightmare as a java based samsung phone, keeps a stable 1 bar signal without disconnectings, and my xperia sp keeps jumping from almost full signal to empty, then disconnects in one minute, then it says wifi out of rance, then it comes full signal for few seconds, and same story again. my brothers GS4 and other friends phones( Xperia M2 , !xperia Z3 compact) has laptop comparable wifi range, when my phone doesn't detect anywifi, theirs detects our college wifi with 1-2 bars, very stable and fast.
i thought wifi problem existed only in 4.1.2 after google and other threads in the forum here
4)) camera is blurry when it takes the first pictures and it doesnt focus how it should focus, and takes a blurry photo, but it takes good photo in the second try, but this is frustrating, as i have to take two photos to get a nice one, if i move the camera to another focus range
3) i want to install international rom for my phone Xperia sp C5303 (this if possible, as pc companion won't do it even if i changed region ) , root it and how to make clean install to get rid of all the orange traces and wipe them from my phone.
i want to kknow the steps needed to make a clean install
i spend the whole last night reading tutorials and stuff on the forums, but every thing seemed like it's in another language, as this is my first android phone, all the vocabulary used here i couldn't understand, and it was too much to get all the info here in one night. i installed pc companion, flash tool, and downloaded a rom from here, it says 4.3 207 AU(it's the only one available, Au is australia apparently but i want something international, or europe firmware )
please guys help me, i am a total noob, and doing my best to understand this and catch up with you, but i need time, i gave up on symbian finally and now it's time for andoird
also what is the best stock official rom , i want good battery backup as advertised , on gsm arena they say it should last 6 hours when browsing the internet, my phone lasts less than half, tho it's not even 1 year old
also guys can you explain what are the cwm and kernel ,and recoveries and what are the benefits of these. i plan to use the phone on stock and play with it few months then pass to custom roms if possible

Welcome! I hope you will have a fun journey on exploring Android. Well I was like you, I am before a faith user on feature phones (unlike you that uses Symbian), as I can't afford smartphones as of my age. Last year, I got this Xperia SP, marking my first Android phone ever, and I was happy that I can now finally learn more about android. So here I am. lol Let me answer to your post paragraph by paragraph
The included apps inside your phone is called BLOATWARES. Bloatwares, are, bloats that are included with your ROM (firmware, OS, it is all just the same term). Bloatwares are usually carrier-installed, or at least the app that were controlled by the manufacturer for example Sony's Sony Select.
1) Battery has always been bad with android. This is however, cannot be blamed solely on the source codes. Most battery draining are caused by the users themselves. Some examples I can include is having numerous number of apps running in the background at once. This will obviously drain so much of your battery. A solution is to decrease any running background processes. Or possible might happen that you have a degraded battery due to long term use. It would be great if you could check your battery health by any tools (CPU Z, S Tools, Battery Log app - my personal fav, or built-in Sony service menu)
2) Wifi range problem is ancient on Xperia SP! That should not happen with the latest .207. Moreover your explanation seems to be worse than the ancient Xperia SP problem. You might be having a damaged ROM (hopefully) or a damaged hardware (I hope not).
3) Camera is okay with me? maybe it is just your thoughts. I suggest for you to cope with it. Besides, not every first shot is perfect
4) International ROM? Do you mean other country's ROM? This can be easily done by flashing an .ftf to your phone. I can guide you with this, but it would be great if you could tell me what country's ROM you are interested in. Hmm can I know something? Is your Xperia SP sim-locked?

[Q&A] [ROM] [4.4.4] [OFFICIAL] LiquidSmooth v3.2 - i9305

Q&A for [ROM] [4.4.4] [OFFICIAL] LiquidSmooth v3.2 - i9305
Some developers prefer that questions remain separate from their main development thread to help keep things organized. Placing your question within this thread will increase its chances of being answered by a member of the community or by the developer.
Before posting, please use the forum search and read through the discussion thread for [ROM] [4.4.4] [OFFICIAL] LiquidSmooth v3.2 - i9305. If you can't find an answer, post it here, being sure to give as much information as possible (firmware version, steps to reproduce, logcat if available) so that you can get help.
Thanks for understanding and for helping to keep XDA neat and tidy!

No nightly's?
Hi,
I am currently on the Liquid Smooth 20.10. go, but I am surprised that no new versions are on the go. Is it so that only a new Nightly appears if there are changes?

4.1.2 bootloader
Hello,
Do you know if it is any problems if i upgrade to this rom with a 4.1.2 bootloader ?
Thank you

LouCroquant said:
Hello,
Do you know if it is any problems if i upgrade to this rom with a 4.1.2 bootloader ?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, not any

dark'em said:
Nope, not any
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot

Remove battery for restart.
Hello,
When i charging my battery power off, i can't restart with the power button.
I must remove my battery for restart.
Somebody have this same problem ?
Thx

cannot install liquidsmooth rom
i'm still new in installing roms. i was able to install rxtreme rom, i would like to try the LS rom. i downloaded the latest nightly rom, and it prompted installation aborted.
i compared the rxtreme rom that i downloaded, it was 1.2gb. but for the LS, it was just over 200mb. i hope someone here can provide me detailed instructions on how to install Liquidsmooth rom on my s3 i9305.

systemui crashes
Hi guys,i just installed the rom and after the reboot i enter the pin code and that message about systemui pops up every 3 seconds.
EDIT:SO i installed the previus version and everything seems fine exept some random camera issues and the notifications
swipe to left functions most of the times doesnt work or maybe it has to do with spesific apps.Can i upgrade to the latest nightly version without doing a hard reset?

jerikice said:
i'm still new in installing roms. i was able to install rxtreme rom, i would like to try the LS rom. i downloaded the latest nightly rom, and it prompted installation aborted.
i compared the rxtreme rom that i downloaded, it was 1.2gb. but for the LS, it was just over 200mb. i hope someone here can provide me detailed instructions on how to install Liquidsmooth rom on my s3 i9305.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read the instructions at the beginning of this thread. It's all there.
It is a little different to rxtreme.
You will need to download the ROM and GApps. I'd download Milestone version - read earlier posts for location.
Go to recovery, flash the ROM then GApps.
Hope all goes well.
Sent from my GT-I9305

LouCroquant said:
Hello,
When i charging my battery power off, i can't restart with the power button.
I must remove my battery for restart.
Somebody have this same problem ?
Thx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but its not case of the rom, it's case of the old battery on any AOSP/CM gave me the exact same problem, I buyed a new battery and no more problems, it's all ok.

.
dark'em said:
Yes, but its not case of the rom, it's case of the old battery on any AOSP/CM gave me the exact same problem, I buyed a new battery and no more problems, it's all ok.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply. My battery is original , it has to come from that.

LliquidSmooth Cameria Issued
I want to thank you for this great Rom, and after many many thank you thoughts i want to ask you if there is something i can do about the camera. After taking 4 pictures camera freezes and can't connect anymore. Thanks again!

Review of the liquid smooth i9305 ROM 4.4.4
I've been using this ROM for the last four months and my verdict is...
...it's ****. S. H. I. T.
So bad that I've gone back to the stock ROM. Maybe it's because the i9305 is a relatively unknown phone (compared to the i9300). Nevertheless it's evident here that little effort has gone into research and testing of this ROM. Here are all the issues I came across during my usage of what is the most terrible android experience I've had.
Battery life: This ROM basically chews up the battery faster than a fat kid in a candy store. Seriously sit back and watch, throughout the day, as battery percentage slips lower and lower until it knocks itself out. And then that brings me to the next problem,
The phone will not charge when the battery is completely dead (phone off): That's right the phone has to be on, before this ROM realises that it should be charging the phone.
Camera: The camera will take about 4 shots, sometimes 10, if you're lucky before it completely fails. The only way around this is by performing a soft or hard reboot. Super fun when you're at a party and when taking a group image, the camera ****s itself. Even with third party camera apps the problem persists.
Microphone: I don't know how a ROM could possibly **** up the microphone, but this ROM succeeds in doing just that. Any recording performed sounds like a 1950s CB radio. This is an experience that you force on everyone you call by having the audacity to use this ****ty ROM.
Multiple Application Incompatibilities: Several big ticket applications fail to run with LiquidCrap. For example Skype refuses to initiate and Viber will not make video calls. That leaves Google Hangouts which for some reason decides to induce a 4 second lag in every word in your conversation.
Video playblack: Wow a custom ROM that refuses to easily work with flash video. The developers solution here is to force you to use dolphin viewer to browse and run some flash mods to work. Unfortunately none of that works. And it's not just flash that refuses to run. Any HTML5 gif or video will not play. Then there are some videos where only the sound will play but nothing else. Good luck watching anything on youtube which is not accessible by the youtube app. Which surprisingly works well.
Random restarts: Oh were you typing in something important? Would be a shame if I just...restarted right now.
Screen Rotation: Lags.
So if you're 13 years old and get a kick out of changing colors in status bars; by all means get this ROM. If you actually have responsibilities and need your phone....to work. Then avoid this ROM at all costs. Hell, avoid every custom ROM for the i9305. Unless it's a slightly modified stock Samsung. This as this there's less chance that something is royally ****ed as in the case here.

desmunda said:
I've been using this ROM for the last four months and my verdict is...
...it's ****. S. H. I. T.
So bad that I've gone back to the stock ROM. Maybe it's because the i9305 is a relatively unknown phone (compared to the i9300). Nevertheless it's evident here that little effort has gone into research and testing of this ROM. Here are all the issues I came across during my usage of what is the most terrible android experience I've had.
Battery life: This ROM basically chews up the battery faster than a fat kid in a candy store. Seriously sit back and watch, throughout the day, as battery percentage slips lower and lower until it knocks itself out. And then that brings me to the next problem,
The phone will not charge when the battery is completely dead (phone off): That's right the phone has to be on, before this ROM realises that it should be charging the phone.
Camera: The camera will take about 4 shots, sometimes 10, if you're lucky before it completely fails. The only way around this is by performing a soft or hard reboot. Super fun when you're at a party and when taking a group image, the camera ****s itself. Even with third party camera apps the problem persists.
Microphone: I don't know how a ROM could possibly **** up the microphone, but this ROM succeeds in doing just that. Any recording performed sounds like a 1950s CB radio. This is an experience that you force on everyone you call by having the audacity to use this ****ty ROM.
Multiple Application Incompatibilities: Several big ticket applications fail to run with LiquidCrap. For example Skype refuses to initiate and Viber will not make video calls. That leaves Google Hangouts which for some reason decides to induce a 4 second lag in every word in your conversation.
Video playblack: Wow a custom ROM that refuses to easily work with flash video. The developers solution here is to force you to use dolphin viewer to browse and run some flash mods to work. Unfortunately none of that works. And it's not just flash that refuses to run. Any HTML5 gif or video will not play. Then there are some videos where only the sound will play but nothing else. Good luck watching anything on youtube which is not accessible by the youtube app. Which surprisingly works well.
Random restarts: Oh were you typing in something important? Would be a shame if I just...restarted right now.
Screen Rotation: Lags.
So if you're 13 years old and get a kick out of changing colors in status bars; by all means get this ROM. If you actually have responsibilities and need your phone....to work. Then avoid this ROM at all costs. Hell, avoid every custom ROM for the i9305. Unless it's a slightly modified stock Samsung. This as this there's less chance that something is royally ****ed as in the case here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't say avoid every custom rom ! There are great roms for i9305 (cm slimkat nameless rr ...)

deleted
---------- Post added at 12:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ----------
Hi Guys! Im fairly new, I only flashed about 10 roms. Using this rom for 5 days now, I have a lot of problems, bugs. But I want to give it another try, because I heard very good things about this rom. so...
garbled "mosaic like" graphics on locksreens notifications only when Im moving them with my fingers
garbled notification bar icons when running tinder
strange scrolling in play/own apps during app updating - app rectangles in the listing seems to detach from the scrolling background, moving slower/faster.
various gfx glitches too fast or short to recall
camera is unusable, ugly FCs, "cant connect"s, even reboots, or phone freezed up for several seconds. using power button release seems to make it worse.
it was clean install, full wipe (FR), + cache before and after flashing. (Philz Touch)
installed:
LS-KK-MileStone-3.2-i9305.zip
Liquid_gapps.4.4.4.build.8.1.zip
I came from stock KK, it was the NEE version (I9305XXUFNL1_I9305NEEFOA1_I9305XXUFOA1_HOME). and some others before that.
Can I make an "even cleaner" install...? Can it be some things left from other roms causing these problems?
Or any advice, so it would work like on your devices?
thx in advance
ps: sorry for the previous post

Hi guys, I have been gone through previous thread but still can't find a proper way to fix the charging animation problem. When turn off my phone and charge it I can't the animation....Do I need to try other Roms?

kbuss said:
deleted
---------- Post added at 12:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ----------
Hi Guys! Im fairly new, I only flashed about 10 roms. Using this rom for 5 days now, I have a lot of problems, bugs. But I want to give it another try, because I heard very good things about this rom. so...
garbled "mosaic like" graphics on locksreens notifications only when Im moving them with my fingers
garbled notification bar icons when running tinder
strange scrolling in play/own apps during app updating - app rectangles in the listing seems to detach from the scrolling background, moving slower/faster.
various gfx glitches too fast or short to recall
camera is unusable, ugly FCs, "cant connect"s, even reboots, or phone freezed up for several seconds. using power button release seems to make it worse.
it was clean install, full wipe (FR), + cache before and after flashing. (Philz Touch)
installed:
LS-KK-MileStone-3.2-i9305.zip
Liquid_gapps.4.4.4.build.8.1.zip
I came from stock KK, it was the NEE version (I9305XXUFNL1_I9305NEEFOA1_I9305XXUFOA1_HOME). and some others before that.
Can I make an "even cleaner" install...? Can it be some things left from other roms causing these problems?
Or any advice, so it would work like on your devices?
thx in advance
ps: sorry for the previous post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you had any luck on sorting your problems out? I've found this ROM to be amazing.
It's fast, smooth and everything works well.
I've played with lollipop ROMs but they have issues so keep coming back. Though when aicp 5.1 is sorted, it is a decent option; very fast and smooth.
Anyway I am using TWRP 2.8.5.0 recovery and stock kernel that came with the ROM. I do a full advanced wipe them factory wipe. I also use SuperSU.
If you're still having issues you could store your files in an external SD card, totally format your internal storage and start again from scratch.
Hope that helps.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

Hi! thx for the answer, but I did everything, apart from I left below. What do you mean by total format? How its done, with what app, and how the carrier/region etc related content is put back after that? I have latest philz touch, and I do dalvik+cache+full wipe before AND after each flash. Im not concerned about my files, everything is on ExtSD and cloud.
Yes the rom is much cooler than CM for the first look, but after 5 days heavy use I got serious problems just like the angry guy mentioned a few post above. after I moved in all my apps and stuff, it lost its smoothness, FCs, and hard battery drain with hot phone.
But the main thing was after I wrote my post, I realized that this rom is not maintained anymore, which is a problem for the 9305. U gotta use what is maintained, so the last day was so bad with this rom, I went back to CM immediately! Which is a dream in simplicity, speed, and battery life, and the latest only few days old!
of course Im still interested in the total format you mentioned, and in this rom, if it gets sorted out...
Essentrix said:
Have you had any luck on sorting your problems out? I've found this ROM to be amazing.
It's fast, smooth and everything works well.
If you're still having issues you could store your files in an external SD card, totally format your internal storage and start again from scratch.
Hope that helps.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

kbuss said:
Hi! thx for the answer, but I did everything, apart from I left below. What do you mean by total format? How its done, with what app, and how the carrier/region etc related content is put back after that? I have latest philz touch, and I do dalvik+cache+full wipe before AND after each flash. Im not concerned about my files, everything is on ExtSD and cloud.
Yes the rom is much cooler than CM for the first look, but after 5 days heavy use I got serious problems just like the angry guy mentioned a few post above. after I moved in all my apps and stuff, it lost its smoothness, FCs, and hard battery drain with hot phone.
But the main thing was after I wrote my post, I realized that this rom is not maintained anymore, which is a problem for the 9305. U gotta use what is maintained, so the last day was so bad with this rom, I went back to CM immediately! Which is a dream in simplicity, speed, and battery life, and the latest only few days old!
of course Im still interested in the total format you mentioned, and in this rom, if it gets sorted out...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are different ways to fully format your internal drive but you will need to backup any important data files to your SD card first. A full format will wipe it clean. I don't use philz these days but from memory you mount system, data etc and format them. Other options are files like those provided by Agni developer for F2FS will wipe it clean as well. As I use twrp it is different again.
I've been on this ROM for months now. It's fast, smooth, no FCs, and with decent use through the day I get 2 full days out of the battery before a recharge.
I use Greenify app, turn off fast dormancy and if there are drainage issues it's generally about finding the rogue app. Titanium backup is another must have app to backup and restore apps. It makes things so easy.
It's not maintained as you say but I don't see that being relevant; it's a well cooked 4.4.4 ROM! You can use other options such as F2FS +/- ART to tweak performance.
The only ROM I'm playing with at present is the 5.1 aicp which is super fast. Only had bug with Apex launcher my launcher of choice.
Have fun! Cheers
Sent from my Xperia Tablet Z Wi-Fi using Tapatalk

Are there any major caveats with the XZ1C?

I've read through reviews, and this looks like a great phone, and the fact that it is a small phone makes it better. But will I be able to have at least root & TWRP without any major downsides?
The camera apparently loses quality, but is there a Gcam HDR+ yet?

If you stay on stock rom, the camera quality will stay the same if you use the DRM-fix.
You'll loose the ability to do OTA updates, tho.

YeshYyyK said:
I've read through reviews, and this looks like a great phone, and the fact that it is a small phone makes it better. But will I be able to have at least root & TWRP without any major downsides?
The camera apparently loses quality, but is there a Gcam HDR+ yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The DRM fix made by sToRm// works on any firmware (next release) and any XZ device.
The DRM that sony installed is broken when you unlock your bootloader and sToRm//'s fix enables it. So there is no loss of quality with the camera, it's exactly as stock. The DRM is fixed or broken, the camera is fixed or broken, there is no half way 'dodgy' pictures that people imagine.
Yes, you won't receive any OTA updates if your phone is rooted, but there is Xperiafirm and Newflasher, to keep you up to date. Then reflash with sToRm//'s app and you're good to go.
In the old days you wanted to root your phone to control all the battery eating apps, but Google/Sony have been aware of the drive to extend battery life for a long time now and with a few exceptions, changing the configuration of the services will probably make your battery worse not better. The battery life on the XZ1 compact is the best of any phone I've had, straight out the box, no tweaking required.
The only other main driver for rooting your phone was to be able to customise it and change the framework colours, but you can do that without root now.
Be sure you want to root you phone for the right reasons, not because it's fashionable, or because you want Xposed installed so that when you press the volume the flash comes on.
There's a chance you'll break your phone in the process, so is what you want to root your phone for important enough to have to buy a new phone for?
I'm not trying to put you off, but if you read sToRm//'s thread, there's loads of people getting into a real mess trying to root when they don't even know what ADB is. They've unlocked their phones, broken the camera, but now stuck unable to get the fix to work. Don't go there.
If you want the Google +HDR camera, check out russel5's [XZ1C,G8441,Lilac]AOSP_8.1 rom, which comes with it baked in

Didgesteve said:
Yes, you won't receive any OTA updates if your phone is rooted, but there is Xperiafirm and Newflasher, to keep you up to date. Then reflash with sToRm//'s app and you're good to go.
In the old days you wanted to root your phone to control all the battery eating apps, but Google/Sony have been aware of the drive to extend battery life for a long time now and with a few exceptions, changing the configuration of the services will probably make your battery worse not better. The battery life on the XZ1 compact is the best of any phone I've had, straight out the box, no tweaking required.
The only other main driver for rooting your phone was to be able to customise it and change the framework colours, but you can do that without root now.
Be sure you want to root you phone for the right reasons, not because it's fashionable, or because you want Xposed installed so that when you press the volume the flash comes on.
There's a chance you'll break your phone in the process, so is what you want to root your phone for important enough to have to buy a new phone for?
I'm not trying to put you off, but if you read sToRm//'s thread, there's loads of people getting into a real mess trying to root when they don't even know what ADB is. They've unlocked their phones, broken the camera, but now stuck unable to get the fix to work. Don't go there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are a few apps that require root that I'd like to use, and a lot of tweaks via TWRP flashing. The main reason really is underclocking the XZ1C, because I really don't need that much power, even if the battery life is already insane.
Thanks a lot though!

Is it still worth rooting my phone?

Good morning (or evening according to timezones)
I have recently purchased a new Note8. Even though the performance is mostly great, I sometimes get lag/stutters and the battery is not that great ( I can get about 3h SOT), but if I don't have my charger with me, there's no chance to get home with the phone still on.
My question is if it is still worth it to root the phone and put a custom Rom on it. I have looked through the various custom rom threads and I am tempted to flash one.
However, my main concern is the banking applications (saw that some don't work anymore after rooting).
At the moment I am on the latest official rom (with the october security patch). I mention that I have no warranty (phone bought from other country), so that shouldn't be an issue.
Any thought please? I have been missing from the android scene for a long time, went IOS there for a while, so I am not sure how to proceed.
Thank you in advance to anyone kind enough to read all this
Bogdan

My Note 8 is the first Samsung phone I haven't rooted as I didn't feel the need to! It's quick and my battery lasts all day (I do have it on medium power saving) and have no problems at all. The Device Maintenance seems to very efficiently clean things up for me when it does get a bit sluggish and I do a restart about every couple of days! I'm very satisfied with my SM-9500 256 GB dual SIM from China! I charge wirelessly every night and use my phone as my bedside clock ...
Sent from my SM-N9500 using Tapatalk

robmeik said:
My Note 8 is the first Samsung phone I haven't rooted as I didn't feel the need to! It's quick and my battery lasts all day (I do have it on medium power saving) and have no problems at all. The Device Maintenance seems to very efficiently clean things up for me when it does get a bit sluggish and I do a restart about every couple of days! I'm very satisfied with my SM-9500 256 GB dual SIM from China! I charge wirelessly every night and use my phone as my bedside clock ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply. I also use the device maintenance and reboot it occasionally, but battery life seems to he a hit and miss for me. I do keep the phone at max resolution and with a lot of sync on, but what would be the point of having a powerful device if we don't use it
I am also a bit surprised as to the low number of custom roms available. Not complaining or anything, but looking back to my old note 2 experience, there was far more enthusiasm at that time. Though android did get better since then

No benifit... after rooting you can havw viper sound modes (most imp) if you are music lover ..i haven't found anything interesting after rooting. I use stock room with no app removed and only viper4 android install. So there no point of rooting

melavdev said:
No benifit... after rooting you can havw viper sound modes (most imp) if you are music lover ..i haven't found anything interesting after rooting. I use stock room with no app removed and only viper4 android install. So there no point of rooting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I'll probably leave the OS alone for now

usually i always end up not rooting for the first 4-6 months due to warranty stuff.
But the moment i rooted, i've gained at least a 20-25% increase in battery life with the usual control one can have.
If it's for cosmetics, dont need root anymore for that. not much on exposed, things like Good Lock make it stay away from root edits.
I personally root for a few apps that i use, which some of them have better features when on root. and also for debloating.

Unless you are a developer or a tech hobbyist, I don't see the point in rooting current android devices as they work perfectly fine straight out the box.

Well, when rooting you gain total control, and can run some nice and useful apps that require root, I like viper4A, but as you pointed out, some apps do not run on rooted devices, banking and streaming apps among others, and of course, there is the one very important component that you loose for ever, secure folder

How likely is it that we will see TWRP and/or LineageOS soon?

I have to ask this. I needed a new phone a month ago, and I chose to wait for this one instead of getting a Note 9, and now I still don't have a usable phone and have less than 20 days to return this one. When I did my research about my next phone I was told that Sony phones are developer-friendly and tend to have a clean Android experience, on top of that, this phone has a 3.5mm jack with a great DAC. Now I come to find out that not only does this phone come with bloatware/spyware, even though you can root it, in Android 10, OEMs have the system locked down as read-only, and while Magik can gimmick /system to remove apps, there is no way to delete apps installed in /oem.
Placing apps in a directory that is impossible to change is inexcusable, especially when they are:
1) A game no one wanted which will be irrelevant in 6 months
2) A FREE TRIAL APP
3) A social media application not everyone uses
It isn't by mistake that Sony did this, and it tells me that the pittance they get from Activision, Jay Z, and Microsoft matters more to them than I do as a customer. Some will say that it is possible to simply de-activate the apps, at least unlike Facebook, there are no background services still running and collecting your data, but I say that is irrelevant. I own my phone; I should be able to control what's on it.
I was still running Android 8 on my One Plus 3T that recently died, so I'm not familiar with how Android works today. We went from simple to hard, to harder. There is A/B, no more stock recovery, and apparently fastboot is dead and is replaced by a blank bootloader flash mode that only lets you know you are in it with a tiny blue LED? I don't know how viable TRWP and Linage are on a phone like this, which is why I am asking. There is only one thing I know for sure right now: I don't have much time to wait for custom ROMs built from the ground up to develop and mature.

You can disable verity and delete them. However, even if you could remove them, they'll just keep coming back with updates. Just disable them and move on with life.
LineageOS is pointless because you're going to lose the Sony camera. Why spend $1,200 if you're going to do that? At that point, just get a Pixel 4a for $350.
Some will say that it is possible to simply de-activate the apps, at least unlike Facebook, there are no background services still running and collecting your data, but I say that is irrelevant. I own my phone; I should be able to control what's on it.
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You totally can. Again, this is about dm-verity, which most custom roms disable and spoof to appear enabled. However, if you're gonna do this on the official rom, it'll be your job to pretty much delete every single piece of bloatware every time you update your phone. It's much easier to simply disable the packages because the disable setting is retained through updates.
There is A/B, no more stock recovery
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Welcome to pretty much every single device since Pixel 3. This is a Google thing, and has nothing to do with Sony.
apparently fastboot is dead and is replaced by a blank bootloader flash mode that only lets you know you are in it with a tiny blue LED?
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Okay, I'll give you this one. Sony did a piss-poor job here. It took me several hours to figure out that:
Vol. Up + Insert USB cable = blue led = fast boot, for which you need to manually install the Google fastboot driver.
Vol. Down + Insert USB cable = green led = download mode, for NewFlasher flashing.
The only indicator is the blue/green LED, which indicates the various modes.

For future reference, I flashed the RU region firmware and it only came with 1 bloatware: Yandex. Best thing about it is, you can uninstall Yandex. So basically I have the 1 II without bloatware! (Except Facebook, but I use it anyway)

YandereSan said:
You can disable verify and delete them. However, even if you could remove them, they'll just keep coming back with updates. Just disable them and move on with life.
LineageOS is pointless because you're going to lose the Sony camera. Why spend $1,200 if you're going to do that? At that point, just get a Pixel 4a for $350.
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First of, thanks for being cool with your response
Second, I bought this phone for a few reasons, and the camera isn't one of them. For any given phone I want:
1) For it to be unlockable so I can install whatever recovery/kernel/OS I want on it. There aren't many phones like that anymore, at least not in the US.
2) Hardware that will last me at least four years.
3) A 3.5mm headphone Jack with a good DAC.
4) A good, large, color-accurate display.
5) Fingerprint reader.
5) Expendable storage (or a LOT of onboard storage and OTG as a compromise).
I have been using the menu button on the left and back button on the right for eight years now, and I can't fix that on this phone
You totally can. Again, this is about dm-verity, which most custom roms disable and spoof to appear enabled. However, if you're gonna do this on the official rom, it'll be your job to pretty much delete every single piece of bloatware every time you update your phone. It's much easier to simply disable the packages because the disable setting is retained through updates.
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Click to collapse
Honestly, the only updates I care about are security updates. If we get lineage or some other mature ROM that can do most of what I want, I'll ditch stock., I only need stock for now. If I do end up updating stock and getting those apps back, I don't mind spending another 5 minutes removing them after the update. I don't like disabled apps for three reasons:
1) If it doesn't disable background services. If you just disable Facebook, Facebook's other services will still keep tracking you and selling your personal information.
2) They still appear in the app menus and stuff, which I hate. It pisses me off seeing COD and a TRIAL for something I'll never, ever, use.
3) I am 99.9% some vulnerability can't exploit them, but I can be 100% sure if they aren't there.
As for why this is all the way it is, I did learn after the fact that it is mostly Google's BS and not Sony. Still, it sucks. I hope I can maybe flash DM variety and disable it on stock.
If I can disable DM variety I'm keeping the phone. If I can't and it doesn't seem like we'll get TWRP and Lineage then I guess I'm getting an Exynos Note 9. I really don't want to though, but those OEM apps WILL haunt me every time I use my phone, touch my phone, think about my phone, or am otherwise reminded I own this phone. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's irrelevant, because that's how it is.

I tried to flash dm variety and disable verification, etc, and it didn't unlock the system, so until TRWP comes to Android 10, it looks like stock in the US is out.
iArvee said:
For future reference, I flashed the RU region firmware and it only came with 1 bloatware: Yandex. Best thing about it is, you can uninstall Yandex. So basically I have the 1 II without bloatware! (Except Facebook, but I use it anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are a god. I looked at the Russian firmware and it doesn't look like it's been dirtied by crazy Putin. You can systemlessy remove all the apps you don't want. I got Magisk and Xposed working on it. I also have 4G on t-mobile, and it lists 5GNR as an option, which the US version did not. To note, I do not have VoLTE or Wifi Calling (not that I care).
I'm going to try and flash the HK dual sim variant just to see if I can unlock the mythical sex sim slot, and also if also fits the bill. I realized that to test dual sim you need a dual sim tray. There is no way to get the Q51 tray to work for this. It doesn't seem that people are selling replacement parts for this phone yet, so right now I can't buy a Q2 tray to test it. I'll circle back around to this in a few months when it becomes time to flip the phone for a Q2, just to see if maybe I don't have to do that.
Thanks everyone for the replies. We could maybe use this as a general TRWP/LineageOS update thread, though I suspect someone will make a new thread as those pass certain milestones.