topic Re: Z1C flaws in XPERIA archive

Z1C flaws

ratacit — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:28:53 GMT

Here is a sum of the issues I have with my Z1C:

camera occasionally freezes. Sometimes it needs to restart the phone and do all the force stop / clear cache etc
I had the duplicating issue. Very annoying. However a software repair and a microSD card formatting fixed it.
Focus hunting during the video taking. OK for memories, crap for presentations or “artistic” tries
crackling sound on notifications. Super annoying
sound drop while using the walkman. Could not determine what triggers it but is there...

Can I live with these? Yes but is more like getting a feeling of resignation

Do I feel I got a premium product? The feel of the machine is fine but its flaws make me say no.

There are good things about it too: camera is slow but great when it works, sound is clear, battery life ok.

Sad part is you pay premium, you learn to leave with its flaws and by the time Sony has some fixes the product is already obsolete.

Even sadder is how much we **bleep** depend of these machines...

Sorry for the rant but I needed to vent while patiently waiting for an update

Sony Z1C running on 14.3.A.0757

Re: Z1C flaws

masterpro — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 08:05:26 GMT

It was a promise on specs wise, i had my doubts because it was Sony.... and i confirmed the worst.

I agree with you and i may add the following:

1 - very poor support

2 - Upgrades are a pain to come out, and when they come they solve a few problems and bring a new batch of problems
3 - Camera was a big desapoitment ( flash bleed is so bad and sony deal with it the worse way possible)
4 - ASF Film on the phone, i dont have words to describe the stupidity of the ones that got that brilliant idea to put the film.
4.1 - Very easy to scratch
4.2 - Makes the touch feel like a entry level phone ( in hot days the finger sticks and it is a fingertip magnet)
4.3 - When using the phone for outdoor activites the ASF film also makes it a pain to navigate properly, the response of touch screen is erractic ( i didnt had that problem on Galaxy S3 and on HTC Desire )

5 - The back cover comes in plastic ( the advertisement department is very bad, they should cleary said it was plastic!!! )

I do not recommend the Phone, i also do not recomend the Phones from Sony for what i read and see in my friends experiment ( yes i was stupid because they add warned me about Sony phones)

even with all of these problems Sony had a chance to improve even if it was in a pre-sales and support, but no.

Very disapointed, because it is really a good phone hardware wise.

Re: Z1C flaws

ratacit — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 01:36:45 GMT

Could also add the fear of dropping it in the water after reading about so many water damage issues all over the forums. That was another purchase reason

Re: Z1C flaws

Ismael_B — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 03:51:26 GMT

I'm too so disappointed with the phone. I feel I wanna kick myself for not going with the S5 which was on a discount.

The two major flops for me are:

1- The Camera: I got this phone because I wanted to have a quality camera with me all the time especially during my travels. But it came out to be a huge disappointment. I really can't believe this is a 20MP camera with top end technology sensors and stuff. It's average at best. My father has an old S2 and it shoots photos with the same quality, and better quality in low light, and even my old Xperia Go with 5MP camera shoots photo that are not much worse than the Z1c camera. In low light the flash bleed is so bad. I heard about it before I bought the phone but I didn't believe it would be to such epic proportions. People should sue sony for this major fault. I ended up having to paint a part of the chrome ring surrounding the camera to get rid of some of that blash bleed. Something you don't expect to do on a top end phone.

2- Moving Apps to SD: Now that was the killer blow. For the first 2 weeks of owning the phone I didn't have a micro SD card. Just yesterday I bought one, put it in, and then I was shocked to know that I couldn't move any apps to my new SD card. It can only be used to store photos and videos and Sony has eliminated the option to move apps to SD for no apparent reason other than to **bleep** off their customers. Have been searching the web all last night for a solution and it seems that there is none except to root the phone which requires unlocking boot loader and losing my warrenty and DRM keys. It's as if Sony did this on purpose in order to minimize the number of units that should be served under warrenty. Again people should sue them for this. Customer support representatives keep replying to angry users that it's an android issue. Now if that was true then why the **bleep** can samsung provide that option to users of their phones. Really shame on you Sony.

FInally I'm just writing this to blow off some steam. I don't believe there will ever be a fix for the above 2 issues and I regret it so much I bought this phone. I hope I can live with it for a while then sell it not before too long and I don't believe I'll ever buy a Sony product again...not just phones.

Re: Z1C flaws

ratacit — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 15:29:47 GMT

The camera is not bad. When it works. It has a bit of a learning curve and it aint fast.

See here some of my photos. Note that all the pics are straight from the camera.

I don't list pic quality on the flaws.

Moving Apps to SD is an Android issue. I am not sure any other manufacturer running 4.4 allows it. Please contradict me.

The unit I have does not have any flash bleed at all. I gues I am lucky. I bought it in HK where it was launched very late in April... Sony has lots of fans there.

Re: Z1C flaws

Ismael_B — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 16:09:52 GMT

You're lucky your unit was flash bleed free...mine had it so bad until I painted around the chrome ring.

Both HTC and Samsung allow moving apps to SD on KK. Ofcourse the app has to be designed to allow it but if it is you can move it.

As it stands now the Z1c is no different than the Nexus...which has vanilla android, better cam, 5 inch display, and cheaper.

Re: Z1C flaws

razorwire — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 08:03:06 GMT

@Ismael_B wrote:
Have been searching the web all last night for a solution and it seems that there is none except to root the phone which requires unlocking boot loader and losing my warrenty and DRM keys.

Hi Ismael, not sure where you got your information from but you certainly don't need to unlock the boot loader to root the phone. you can root very easily without having to touch the boot loader. Easy Root Tool is the easiest way, it's pretty much a one-click process.

Re: Z1C flaws

Ismael_B — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 03:21:04 GMT

Well, Easyroot tool doesn't work for Jellybean as far as I know, and I don't want to upgrade to Kitkat yet (though it seems I'd be forced to do that). Besides I'm not even sure that rooting the phone would help solving the move apps to SD issue. Some people can't get foldermount to work on their devices.

The thing is, as a normal user, why should I be forced to delve into the world of development and have to read about rooting, unlocking, Android SDK, USB debugging mode, etc. when all I want is just a simple option that all dumbass users of Samsung and HTC have on their high end phones even on Kitkat. I bought a phone that promised storage expansion up to 64 GB. I think I should be entitled to use it anyway I like. Yes I know and agree that a lot of apps can't be moved to the external SD card but then again a lot of them can so why should I be deprived from a right I paid for.

This is just deceptive marketing and poor customer care. There are no excuses for Sony on this issue. It's enough already that the phone is cursed with a major fault like the flash bleed that they're still denying.

Re: Z1C flaws

ratacit — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 07:35:54 GMT

I need more time to test but so far, after the 4.4.4 update, I noticed the following:

camera occasionally freezes. Sometimes it needs to restart the phone and do all the force stop / clear cache etc need more testing.
I had the duplicating issue. Very annoying. However a software repair and a microSD card formatting fixed it. No issue here
Focus hunting during the video taking. OK for memories, crap for presentations or “artistic” tries seems OK
crackling sound on notifications. Super annoying gone!!!
sound drop while using the walkman. Could not determine what triggers it but is there... It was the call... now gone

I start liking it more. Time needs to validate the update.

Re: Z1C flaws

JiYong — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 12:19:54 GMT

@Ismael_B: Stop being a cry-baby. Nobody said that the extra storage can be used for apps, so no, you are not automatically entitled to that and you didn't pay for it. Google took out the support for app2SD, so it's not Sony's fault. The reason Google did it, is to block possible security and privacy issues.

On the bright side, you get 128 GB micro SD support "for free".

Re: Z1C flaws

Ismael_B — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 00:46:30 GMT

@Ji_Yong: if you don't like my posts or don't have anything useful to say then just ignore. If you're a sony support representative then try to tell your employers that customers aren't happy or just keep silent if you don't have anyway to fix this issue. And btw the phone support cards up to 64gb not 128 and I f you don't care about moving apps to sd then just go enjoy your phone and let me say whatever I want. It's enough that I have to live with this phone already

Re: Z1C flaws

JiYong — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 08:13:04 GMT

@Ismael_B: No, I'm not employed by Sony in any way. Why do you say that you are entitled to say whatever you want, but you deny me that same privilege?

So in short, no I can't fix the issue and I also explained that the behaviour of the SD card has changed because of Google, not because of Sony. And I'm not the only one saying this. http://www.androidcentral.com/kitkat-sdcard-changes

If it's really a deal breaker for you, try to get a firmware from XDA that has app2SD support.

Have you actually tried a 128GB micro SD in the Z1 Compact? I have tried and it works just fine (of course, still no app2SD).

And I'm not the only one: http://phandroid.com/2014/02/27/phones-that-work-with-sandisk-128gb-microsdxc-card/

Re: Z1C flaws

Ismael_B — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 11:32:06 GMT

@Ji_Yong: ofcourse you're entitled to say whatever you want but you shouldn't have addressed me with it. If you like the phone and don't care about moving apps that good for you but just don't call me a cry baby for asking for something that I believe is my right. You don't feel it's your right to have this option or don't care that's fine but don't judge other people. It's not like I'm the only one who's unhappy with the lack of moving apps feature. There are a lot of threads on these forums and other android forums complaining about it from customers with different Z series phones.

Also please stop this cliche answer about android restrictions. First of all, I'm still using JB so I shouldn't be bothered by Kitkat restrictions if they were really true. Second of all, Samsung and HTC have the move apps to SD feature on both JB and KK phones so it can't be really that difficult to implement. Finally and that's the most frustrating point is that Sony themselves brought that feature back to T2 phones with the KK4.4.4 upgrade rolling out these days so it should be a piece of cake to roll out a similar upgrade for the Z series phones.

I don't feel I have to be forced to install third party firmwares and risk my warrenty just because lazy **bleep** developers at Sony don't want to do their jobs like the ones at Samsung or HTC. I have the right to complain, and since I didn't address you with this complaint in first place then I think you shouldn't have called me names even if you don't feel my complaint is rightful.

Re: Z1C flaws

ratacit — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 06:40:07 GMT

Ladies and gents please don't fight on this thread.

Back to flaws:

After the upgrade the camera still freezes. Not so often but it does. On the other hand the start up time is faster and lag is improved. Autofocus also seems slightly better.

Re: Z1C flaws

JiYong — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 17:18:40 GMT

Do you have a SD card and do you store the images there?

Have you enabled or disabled the auto backup?

Settings > Accounts > Google > (Click on your account) > Sync Google Photos Auto Backup

It's not that I have the solution, but perhaps changing those settings will help.

My guess it's best to store on internal memory (as long as there is enough space) and disable Auto Backup (unless you really need it).

Re: Z1C flaws

ratacit — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 06:32:11 GMT

I save the pics on yhe memory card.

I do not have any auto backup enabled.

You have a point with the SD card. I might try and remember to move the pics from time to time to the SD after taking them.

Cheers

Re: Z1C flaws

ratacit — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 06:44:00 GMT

I am testing with the photos saved on the internal memory and it seems to be better. It requiers more testing...

But again is living with a workaround

Re: Z1C flaws

Peter304 — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 05:54:20 GMT

I researched that and the reason it happens is because the phone bends from the battery heating up. This would explain why water got into my old Xperia Z1