Back in September Sony Ericsson announced that some of their devices would be getting an upgrade to Android 2.3.4, the downside was that the rollout was only announced for Nordic countries. Sony Ericsson has now announced via the Sony Ericsson blog that the 2.3.4 update is now rolling out to the rest of the world and that they`ve also added some more goodies to the update that rolled out to the Nordic countries.
The devices getting the update are : Xperia Arc, Xperia PLAY, Xperia Neo, Xperia Mini, Xperia Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, Xperia Ray, Xperia Active, Xperia Neo V, Xperia Arc S and the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman.
So what is in the update :
- Google Talk with Video Chat for smartphones with front-facing camera
- Updated Facebook inside Xperia™ functionality for enhanced like, share and discover abilities.
- Xperia™ smartphones introducing world’s first 3D Sweep Panorama functionality powered by Sony.
- 16x video zoom
- The software upgrade will enable consumers to turn their Xperia™ smartphone into a mini-mobile PC by connecting USB peripherals (mouse, keyboard or game controller) to Sony Ericsson LiveDock™ multimedia station. Connect the smartphone to a TV via HDMI to get a big screen experience.
- Gesture input – text input by swiping the finger from one letter to the next
- WiFi DLNA
- Screen capture – allows the user to share a screen grab from anywhere in the phone.
Some caveats apply to the rollout, the update will be available for all unlocked mobiles and most carrier variants but there will be local deviations -so basically it`ll depend on your carrier to deliver the update after ‘testing’. Now, obviously Google Talk video chat will only be available for phones with front facing camera, the only other exception is with the Xperia PLAY, which will not get 3D panorama sweep but it will get HD video recording and the rest of the updates.
No word yet on Ice Cream Sandwich for the Xperia lineup, but Google has said that devices running Gingerbread should technically be able to run the newest Android update and Sony Ericsson seem pretty keen to keep their devices updated and even adding the extra functions seen above, so hopefully we`ll see something on it after the Ice Cream Sandwich source is released to AOSP. We`ll keep you posted if/when they announce something.
Video from Sony covering the update :
I thought that SE said all their current devices were getting ICS, hope they do.
At this stage SE have said yes to ICS, I assume after the 2.3.4 update the next would be 4.0
2.3.4 was great for the 10 minutes I spent using it before the Neo died. Excuse the following rant if you must but I think this is a serious issue. Problem is users of the Xperia Neo and Xperia Arc updated their phone to Android 2.3.4 and because the update was new there was no working root method for the Android version so users flashed 2.3.2 to their phones and attempted to use Gingerbreak to root it. What happened with the downgrade is that the downgrade and/or the use of Gingerbreak caused the phone to display 0% battery and turn… Read more »
How is this Sony Ericsson’s fault?
This is great news! I got an Xperia Arc today since my Desire died.
Hopefully ICS makes its way to my phone in the future!