Sony Ericsson which was previously plagued by legacy Android versions is turning for the better. For 2011, we’ve seen the new range of Xperia arc, Xperia Play, Xperia Pro and Xperia Neo which runs on the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.
With the newer models running the latest versions, Sony Ericsson has announced via its product blog that it will also extend its latest Gingerbread development on its former Xperia X10 devices which carries the version number of 2.3.3. Several months back, Sony Ericsson had released its Android 2.1 Eclair update for the X10 and with no future updates expected after that.
Why the change of heart? According to Sony Ericsson, they had listened to feedbacks and their recent development of Gingerbread integration for its current line also made it possible to extend such upgrades for the Xperia X10. Unfortunately this coming upgrade is only applicable for the top of the line Xperia X10 and there are no plans to extend this for Xperia X10 mini, X10 pro and X8.
The Xperia X10 Gingerbread update is expected to roll out between Q2 and Q3 this year, which is probably as early as next month or as late as September. Considering Gingerbread is a huge update that skips Froyo, some functionalities will be lost such as:
- The current plan is that the XperiaTM X10 will get the Android standard Camera user interface and therefore features like e.g. face recognition, smile shutter etc will be lost.
- Moxier is replaced by the gingerbread native EAS functionality.
- Mediascape is being replaced by the media experience widgets and music player included in our new 2011 products.
- DRM keys for protected content on your phone will be lost in the upgrade process.
- The Sony Ericsson Backup and Restore client is not supported in the Gingerbread version and will therefore be lost.
- Support for bi-directional languages will be reduced compared to the latest version of the 2.1 version of the XperiaTM X10.
Great to see Sony Ericsson being proactive with Android software updates and if this goes as plan, it will certainly gain back confidence from Sony Ericsson loyalists out there.
