I'm on SGP312 (WiFi, 32GB). 4.3 was definitely a shoddy update. I updated using SUS, having locked down my bootloader. After about an hour of attempting to use it, I used Flashtool to restore a 4.2.2 US FTF image, and re-rooted using Kingo. Now I'm back to normal.
Main complaints:
1. Screen flickering with keyboard problem
2. New application drawer/access is not an improvement (change for change's sake)
3. Same irritating problems plaguing WALKMAN (see post here)
4. Themes are meh
Conceptual complaints:
- It seems like Sony, though they do hit it out of the park with an excellent product from time to time (like the tablet Z), really struggle to integrate multiple services. So you have PlayMemories Online, but it's not integrated for example with the desktop Sony Mobile photo manager; you have to get PlayMemories Home instead, which doesn't have the music management functionality; you also have talk.sonymobile.com forums and community.sony.com forums; for updating, you have Emma, SUS, PC Companion - why can't these be one program? And when you try to contact support it's like something approaching a government bureaucracy. I like Sony, I really do, but they are unbelievably complicated. I say all this because this "culture of complication" manifests itself in problematic ways when they are trying to deploy system updates to a tablet; which is supposed to be a unifying device.
My advice to other users displeased with 4.3 is to do what I did; go get Flashtool and download an FTF stock ROM of whatever previous 4.x flavor you want. At this point I'm really losing faith in Sony's ability to manage decent Android updates. My gut feeling is that Sony should just start putting their media apps out on Play Store, make them compatible across the spectrum, and run as bare-bones a version of Android as possible (like Motorola has done with Moto X).
