Android 9 features report

[kw0n2k]

Sure can...... Give me another 2 days as I just updated to AU G8141.

 

[SATZDAS]

is it recording hdr video like xz2?

 

[kw0n2k]

is it recording hdr video like xz2?

Both G8141 and g8142 didn't have a HDR option in video.

 

[SATZDAS]

Both G8141 and g8142 didn't have a HDR option in video.

what camera improvents are there apart from [email protected]?

 

[madshark2009]

what camera improvents are there apart from [email protected]?

The camera UI is much nicer now, easier and feels new finally but nothing special in terms of performance
though some people reported better lowlight performance in auto mode in photos, I also felt a slight improvement but I cant compare it to android 8 because I cant go back now, If I have a firmware of android 8 in my region I would have compared photos and made sure of this claim, but in terms of feeling I do feel the camera has a slight improvement in overall performance but nothing to be so hyped about.
and as for [email protected] it records slowmo only half the time it does on [email protected], regardless its nice to have it added.
also now we have support for google lens, which can read text through the camera, identify products and more.

 

[hasaan6545]

The camera UI is much nicer now, easier and feels new finally but nothing special in terms of performance
though some people reported better lowlight performance in auto mode in photos, I also felt a slight improvement but I cant compare it to android 8 because I cant go back now, If I have a firmware of android 8 in my region I would have compared photos and made sure of this claim, but in terms of feeling I do feel the camera has a slight improvement in overall performance but nothing to be so hyped about.
and as for [email protected] it records slowmo only half the time it does on [email protected], regardless its nice to have it added.
also now we have support for google lens, which can read text through the camera, identify products and more.

That's not correct. The duration of the super slow motion recording is the same as that on Oreo. I actually tested it.

 

[madshark2009]

That's not correct. The duration of the super slow motion recording is the same as that on Oreo. I actually tested it.

yes on 720p its the same, oreo only recorded [email protected] and not 1080.
now we have [email protected] at the same duration that is on oreo plus we got the [email protected] but only half the duration of 720.
I stated all of this in my comment if you read carefully

 

[Atrax2010]

The camera has seen some noticable improvements, it resolves much more detail and has less agressive post processing. It still tries to compensate for noise, but does it much better this time, you can see the post processing when you zoom in, but before it was like they were replacing original photo noise with their own post-processed noise. Not so much the case now. The photos look cleaner and more detailed, with much less of that "water paint" effect.
Samples attached, first picture is Oreo, second in Pie.
Keep in mind, the shots made on Pie were under lower light conditions, but they still turned out with more detail and better resolved shadows. On Oreo the building was pretty much under direct sunlight, which should be ideal.
It does seem to have some slight stabilization now even in the photo mode, it is noticable in the viewfinder, it tries to correct for some slight movements.
Why we still don't see an option to lower the framerate of a super slowmo videos in any Xperia yet, is a mistery to me and a missed opportunity. 960FPS is still cool as hell, but still next to unusable if you want to catch that perfect moment. Adding 1080p super slowmo is a complete waste of time if you ask me. Give me [email protected] so that I can actually use the damned thing.
Both GPU and CPU benchmarks are better in Pie. GPU: 7831 / 7991, CPU: 1934-6550 / 1956-6695, using geekbench.
Battery life is better for me, by the end of the day I'm usually at arround 50%, and now I'm sitting at 80%, with same apps and setup, plus I've been editing these photos and screenshots, uploading them to Drive and so on... I feel like the battery is now as it was on Nougat, and it got worse in Oreo. I'm not a power user, so it never really bothered me, I get two days easy with Oreo, but I remember that I could sometimes stretch it to four days on Nougat. With Oreo, three days was not achievable even by my usage.
Average RAM usage dropped from 2.5GB after one day to 1.9-2.0GB, so RAM management seems to be better.
Phone feels smooth, animations are a bit different in feeling, smoother and more noticable, previously you'd might notice almost like a slight framedrop or stutter, it felt a bit jerky sometimes, not slow or laggy, but almost like the animations were at lower FPS or something, can't really describe it.
One thing I'm most impressed about is the fingerprint scanner. I gave it a shot in Nougat and Oreo but gave up, it was always a struggle and hit-or-miss. In Pie, I don't even see a prompt to scan my finger, just push the power button and boom, it's unlocked. And it seems it got faster the more I used it, it did fail to detect a couple of times during the first day, but now it's instant unlock.
All in all, great work on this update, I'm very pleased.
One thing I'm a bit confused about, using volume keys used to lower your call and notification volumes and also could enable Do not disturb. Now it controls media volume. Can that be changed or is it Pie thing?
I saw someone mentioning how themes were removed , not sure what that is all about, themes are still on my phone.
I didn't do a software repair after flashing with newflasher, don't know if that makes any difference, I couldn't use xperia flasher because of the missing fsc script, so I'm not even sure if I flashed this right using newflasher, never used it before. The phone didn't have image on screen when I first tried to boot it, only wallpaper. It was fine on second reboot :silly:

 

[LukeyWolf]

I found this when I used acticity launcher. Ambient display isn't in settings. I also installed one handed mode, appeared in settings but it s not working....

Ambient display is incredibly pointless for our displays...

 

[Gaaat]

The camera UI is much nicer now, easier and feels new finally but nothing special in terms of performance
though some people reported better lowlight performance in auto mode in photos, I also felt a slight improvement but I cant compare it to android 8 because I cant go back now, If I have a firmware of android 8 in my region I would have compared photos and made sure of this claim, but in terms of feeling I do feel the camera has a slight improvement in overall performance but nothing to be so hyped about.
and as for [email protected] it records slowmo only half the time it does on [email protected], regardless its nice to have it added.
also now we have support for google lens, which can read text through the camera, identify products and more.

How did you manage to get Google Lens integrated into camera app?

Is there a way to enable Night Light feature as it was in Oreo? Since the option in developer options is only to enable dark themes for app that supports it.

 

[madshark2009]

How did you manage to get Google Lens integrated into camera app?

Is there a way to enable Night Light feature as it was in Oreo? Since the option in developer options is only to enable dark themes for app that supports it.

its not integrated i downloaded it and use it as an app of its self.
night light was working on oreo?? I never noticed it, what do you mean dark themese? could you elaborate more im not following

 

[Gaaat]

its not integrated i downloaded it and use it as an app of its self.
night light was working on oreo?? I never noticed it, what do you mean dark themese? could you elaborate more im not following

Yes it can be enabled through overlay, search here in xda.

Many apps now support (YouTube for example) a "dark appearance" instead of the light one. Theoretically that options enables the possibility to set this dark theme as default for every app that supports it. But at the moment not even Google apps are compatible with this feature.

 

[nirai06]

its not integrated i downloaded it and use it as an app of its self.
night light was working on oreo?? I never noticed it, what do you mean dark themese? could you elaborate more im not following

But google lens is already integrated into google assistant since oreo for xz premium. So, I dont think you would need to download a separate app.

 

[ashkan.t]

can we use this method for Pie ?
i did test it on Oreo and it worked well
http://www.xperiablog.net/2018/03/2...youre-running-the-march-2018-security-update/

 

[Gaaat]

can we use this method for Pie ?
i did test it on Oreo and it worked well
http://www.xperiablog.net/2018/03/2...youre-running-the-march-2018-security-update/

I tried but I was unable to install the apk, It would be great if someone was able to port it to pie

 

[Rayids]

Also,
Is something weird going on with the navigation bar?
It used to be transparent now it's just stuck there like a block.. (google chrome, whatsapp.. )
worked fine on homepage and some sony apps

 

[isazar]

Also,
Is something weird going on with the navigation bar?
It used to be transparent now it's just stuck there like a block.. (google chrome, whatsapp.. )
worked fine on homepage and some sony apps

i have the same problem in some apps has like a little white line not good

 

[SATZDAS]

The camera has seen some noticable improvements, it resolves much more detail and has less agressive post processing. It still tries to compensate for noise, but does it much better this time, you can see the post processing when you zoom in, but before it was like they were replacing original photo noise with their own post-processed noise. Not so much the case now. The photos look cleaner and more detailed, with much less of that "water paint" effect.
Samples attached, first picture is Oreo, second in Pie.
Keep in mind, the shots made on Pie were under lower light conditions, but they still turned out with more detail and better resolved shadows. On Oreo the building was pretty much under direct sunlight, which should be ideal.
It does seem to have some slight stabilization now even in the photo mode, it is noticable in the viewfinder, it tries to correct for some slight movements.
Why we still don't see an option to lower the framerate of a super slowmo videos in any Xperia yet, is a mistery to me and a missed opportunity. 960FPS is still cool as hell, but still next to unusable if you want to catch that perfect moment. Adding 1080p super slowmo is a complete waste of time if you ask me. Give me [email protected] so that I can actually use the damned thing.
Both GPU and CPU benchmarks are better in Pie. GPU: 7831 / 7991, CPU: 1934-6550 / 1956-6695, using geekbench.
Battery life is better for me, by the end of the day I'm usually at arround 50%, and now I'm sitting at 80%, with same apps and setup, plus I've been editing these photos and screenshots, uploading them to Drive and so on... I feel like the battery is now as it was on Nougat, and it got worse in Oreo. I'm not a power user, so it never really bothered me, I get two days easy with Oreo, but I remember that I could sometimes stretch it to four days on Nougat. With Oreo, three days was not achievable even by my usage.
Average RAM usage dropped from 2.5GB after one day to 1.9-2.0GB, so RAM management seems to be better.
Phone feels smooth, animations are a bit different in feeling, smoother and more noticable, previously you'd might notice almost like a slight framedrop or stutter, it felt a bit jerky sometimes, not slow or laggy, but almost like the animations were at lower FPS or something, can't really describe it.
One thing I'm most impressed about is the fingerprint scanner. I gave it a shot in Nougat and Oreo but gave up, it was always a struggle and hit-or-miss. In Pie, I don't even see a prompt to scan my finger, just push the power button and boom, it's unlocked. And it seems it got faster the more I used it, it did fail to detect a couple of times during the first day, but now it's instant unlock.
All in all, great work on this update, I'm very pleased.
One thing I'm a bit confused about, using volume keys used to lower your call and notification volumes and also could enable Do not disturb. Now it controls media volume. Can that be changed or is it Pie thing?
I saw someone mentioning how themes were removed , not sure what that is all about, themes are still on my phone.
I didn't do a software repair after flashing with newflasher, don't know if that makes any difference, I couldn't use xperia flasher because of the missing fsc script, so I'm not even sure if I flashed this right using newflasher, never used it before. The phone didn't have image on screen when I first tried to boot it, only wallpaper. It was fine on second reboot :silly:

thanks for such a detailed review buddy.We need more people like you in this particular forum

 

[amanieux]

*switching to 4k mod using adb commands no more requires you to install a special dialer, it works fine with the dialer that comes with the firmware

i got the OTA pie update yesterday and it still crashes in 4k with the sony default phone dialer but with google dialer it was not crashing(switch dialer in settings/app/system apps/phone)

---------- Post added at 03:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:50 PM ----------

I saw that a lot of people ask a lot of other people who had the time to flash the new android pie,
I decided to share my experience with it so far so you wont have to go searching in forums for stuff

*recent apps are still the same.
*switching to 4k mod using adb commands no more requires you to install a special dialer, it works fine with the dialer that comes with the firmware, also recent apps are no longer black.
*I have to be honest I flashed a firmware that isnt for our single sim device and isnt even for my region but the animations in it are kind of weird, I cant say slow or fast but are weird in my opinion.
*camera UI is changed, I dont see anything special though, you can now have the google lens app which has new features that im sure most of you already know about (like reading and copying texts, identifying products etc...), video recording doesnt record HDR as some have stated, either that or I have not found out how to use it yet, but there is FULL HD 960 fps now.
*night mode does not work I dont know if its because of the firmware or that it simply doesnt work.
*phone does not feel as snappy as oreo I am being very honest, especially with power button, when I press it it takes about half a second for the phone to turn on screen.
*notification settings are new like what you saw on other devices, though I wanted round edges, but its still edgy corners like always.
*battery didnt show improvement (tho needs further testing) but it didnt also show worse so thats a good start.
*no SDR to HDR as people thought.
*sound levels didnt change, system touch sounds are still the same, ringtone and notification tone still the same

so far thats all I have encountered Ill let yall know when anything special pops in my eyes while i use the device.

*note:
I would really say to all you who have not received the update yet, there is no really something to be hyped about, just wait for your carrier to release the update.
if you have any further questions, feel free

in photo manual mode there is hdr option available but i notice no difference if it is on or off

 

[ashkan.t]

i got the OTA pie update yesterday and it still crashes in 4k with the sony default phone dialer but with google dialer it was not crashing(switch dialer in settings/app/system apps/phone)

---------- Post added at 03:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:50 PM ----------


in photo manual mode there is hdr option available but i notice no difference if it is on or off

Me too