The XSP has been a disappointment.

[donk165]

So I've got my new device, and I'm so glad to be rid of my SP, I bought it around April 2014 for £250 and at the time, it sounded like a decent performer on paper. Then we got our first update, pretty buggy, then we got the news of the 4.4 update being cancelled. Then FXP moved us to a legacy device. Today, I sold my device for a measly £25 at cash converters after CeX said my loud speaker was too distorted and couldn't be accepted.

I still to this day don't understand why the phones memory management was so horrible. 1gb should be enough to get by, all I got was crashes, even on the lock screen and system ui.

I hope people who still have the SP can move on from what has been a massive let down for me. Anyone looking to pick one up for cheap, avoid it unless the disco lights draw you in like they did to me.

 

[ShinOrochiX]

So I've got my new device, and I'm so glad to be rid of my SP, I bought it around April 2014 for £250 and at the time, it sounded like a decent performer on paper. Then we got our first update, pretty buggy, then we got the news of the 4.4 update being cancelled. Then FXP moved us to a legacy device. Today, I sold my device for a measly £25 at cash converters after CeX said my loud speaker was too distorted and couldn't be accepted.

I still to this day don't understand why the phones memory management was so horrible. 1gb should be enough to get by, all I got was crashes, even on the lock screen and system ui.

I hope people who still have the SP can move on from what has been a massive let down for me. Anyone looking to pick one up for cheap, avoid it unless the disco lights draw you in like they did to me.

+1, it was mainly the lights that attracted me as well (and cheap price, I got mine from an ebay auction for £160 ). Decent hardware/beautiful design but let down by poor software, 1GB RAM is plenty. I should be getting my replacement very soon as well :fingers-crossed: .

Tbh my experience with Sony has only gotten worse with time, I remember back when I was using the Xperia X8-happy days :good:.

 

[joesnose]

another unhappy customer

crappy screen, constant lag!!! my samsung s2 and nexus7 2012 blow this thing away. i have ordered a new phone and am actually looking forward to smashing this thing with a hammer!

 

[tomzzi]

Same here... I hate my XSP. Battery life is bad, buggy update, 4.4 cancelled... I need new phone but don't know what to buy. I am considering XZ3C but its Sony.....

 

[ironshadow2]

Yea, the worst part I thought the phone is very good and and comes near the s4 when I bought it, because of the benchmarks. This is the last time I trust benchmarks. I have got my phone since 1 year and I think I will wait for the note 5 .

 

[penn.gwyn]

For the money the XP has very decent specs. Yet somehow no matter which ROM I use there always seem to be lag issues. My wife's S2 performs much better in that respect even though its specs are somewhat lower.

I noticed that greenifying background apps help a lot to reduce lag in day to day usage. But still whenever I do some multitasking, e.g. switching to a music app while tracking my run using runtastic, the phone lags.

It would be very interesting to find out why the SP with its more than decent specs is so laggy.

 

[uh oh]

del

 

[Spasik]

So

Ever since i saw this phone i was like MUST HAVE THIS
When i finally bought it last year it was huge upgrade from xperia mini pro that i has.
But as time passed i was seeing the flaws that i cant unseen.
UNRESPONSIVE DIGITALIZER OMG SO BAD - any custom rom and sometimes even on STOCK
The hw seems good, i dont know where the problem is but this phone is just too slow, i think it is because of slow internal memory.
I cant affort upgrade so......

Running RR 5.4.0 Finally working well...... (still ram problems like any other rom on this phone.....)

 

[rdlegy]

Yes the hardware lied to me too. I had a phone with 15k on antutu and ran smoother than xsp. I sold it yesterday. I don't have much money so I will buy a budget device like lg l bello or lenovo a6000 and they will still be better than this xsp.

 

[le grande magnetto]

yea, we all have something in common.

 

[thewild]

I'm very happy with my XSP now, but I had to do a lot of cleaning on the ROM.
Out of the box experience is bad, I must admit.
I tried custom ROMs and none of them really satisfied me. I got back to stock rooted (.207), removed all Sony apps and a lot of other system apps I don't use. Now battery life is very good and even multitasking is OK. I have ~320MB free RAM after boot. I installed Xposd to have all the nice tweaks that custom ROMs provide.

Having to tweak the phone so much to get it to work is not acceptable for an average customer, but I am happy with my XSP because I did it.
Also note that i bought my phone in July 2013 for 320€, and at that time it was a very good deal. Best hardware for the price.
So I am not unhappy at all, but totally aware that this phone is not a good deal if you stick to out of the box experience.

 

[Spasik]

I'm very happy with my XSP now, but I had to do a lot of cleaning on the ROM.
Out of the box experience is bad, I must admit.
I tried custom ROMs and none of them really satisfied me. I got back to stock rooted (.207), removed all Sony apps and a lot of other system apps I don't use. Now battery life is very good and even multitasking is OK. I have ~320MB free RAM after boot. I installed Xposd to have all the nice tweaks that custom ROMs provide.

Having to tweak the phone so much to get it to work is not acceptable for an average customer, but I am happy with my XSP because I did it.
Also note that i bought my phone in July 2013 for 320€, and at that time it was a very good deal. Best hardware for the price.
So I am not unhappy at all, but totally aware that this phone is not a good deal if you stick to out of the box experience.

For someone this phone can be ok, but the digitizer problems are just a disaster for android phone like this.....
I am probably not buying sony phone again, but only reason for that is really poor software support

 

[LittleGreenSony]

you guys are lucky

My xperia SP is boot loader locked by my carrier (EE) have tried every rom available to get good performance. So I'm back to stock with xposed.
Anyway 1gb of RAM should be fine, and would be fine, but the xperia SP doesn't have 1gb of RAM, 185mb is used by the baseband processor, leaving 839mb for the OS. Oh wait that isn't optimised. Darn only 256mb for the user. Great thinking Sony.
Also you give it 720p how is the CPU going to push the OS. Give me strength.
System UI works hard... Typo because the screen responsiveness has stopped. I meant hardly working.
The camera well that produces more noise than the speaker.

The aluminium "co-molded" chassis The metallic version of chipboard. The back of the phone that flexes inward and disintergrates due to the amount of times I've had to remove it to hard off the phone

These kinks that our phone has, make it for me.

The Design Connoisseur's smartphone, remind me to nail it to the wall when I'm done with it.

 

[TheAvengingTITAN]

The phone always let me down but then I found out it was because I was using way too many modules on xposed lol.

I recently unlocked my bootloader and flashed mrcl's CM12.1 with Tangerine kernel (the first ever CM12 based kennel for the XSP and the first custom kernel I've ever used). Everything is incredibly smooth, feels like I'm playing a game at 60FPS.

Here's what I did with the kernel
CPU Governor: Smartassv2
GPU Governor: ondemand
I/O Scheduler: bfq

Here's what I did for speed
1. SD Maid Pro
2. Z3's Xperia Home (believe it or not)


Sent from my Xperia SP using XDA Free mobile app

 

[lvints]

The phone always let me down but then I found out it was because I was using way too many modules on xposed lol.

I recently unlocked my bootloader and flashed mrcl's CM12.1 with Tangerine kernel (the first ever CM12 based kennel for the XSP and the first custom kernel I've ever used). Everything is incredibly smooth, feels like I'm playing a game at 60FPS.

Here's what I did with the kernel
CPU Governor: Smartassv2
GPU Governor: ondemand
I/O Scheduler: bfq

Here's what I did for speed
1. SD Maid Pro
2. Z3's Xperia Home (believe it or not)


Sent from my Xperia SP using XDA Free mobile app

Do you have a good battery life?

 

[thewild]

For someone this phone can be ok, but the digitizer problems are just a disaster for android phone like this.....
I am probably not buying sony phone again, but only reason for that is really poor software support

What are your problems with the digitizer ?
I don't have any. I play some games, so I believe I would have noticed.

As for RAM, it is not that much of a problem once you've cleaned the ROM. I can play games like Asphalt 8 without any issue.
Anyway, I agree that the stock software is very bad, but the hardware is fine IMHO.

 

[rdlegy]

Whatever you do you will not able to make it normal. I sold it and bought a lenovo a6000. The lenovo is faster even tho it has 20k on antutu, you install apps extremely fast and you have much better display, it is not heavy as a nokia like the xsp was and overall even tho it has 20 k points on anututu it does the job better

 

[TheAvengingTITAN]

Do you have a good battery life?

Excellent battery life.

Sent from my Xperia SP using XDA Free mobile app

---------- Post added at 12:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 PM ----------

The lenovo is faster even tho it has 20k on antutu, you install apps extremely fast

The SP with CM12.1 gave me a score of 27000+ and everything is blazing fast. I actually compared this side by side with a Z2 and Z3 and I can say, the SP is as fast as them with the new ROMs when It comes to installation and multitasking.

Sad to see you left the XSP. But at least you're happy with your lenovo

Sent from my Xperia SP using XDA Free mobile app

 

[TheAvengingTITAN]

I took this when my phone was overheating, so this is the lowest score I got on AnTuTu with Android 5.1

Sent from my Xperia SP using XDA Free mobile app

 

[thewild]

Whatever you do you will not able to make it normal. I sold it and bought a lenovo a6000. The lenovo is faster even tho it has 20k on antutu, you install apps extremely fast and you have much better display, it is not heavy as a nokia like the xsp was and overall even tho it has 20 k points on anututu it does the job better

Antutu is antutu. It relies a lot on gaming performance for instance, and the XSP is good at 3D games. It does not rely much on storage performance, and XSP is not good there.
But you say that you can't make it normal and I have to disagree with this because mine is behaving perfectly, on stock (cleaned) ROM.
Even battery life is good. (one day with quite heavy usage, Waze, Ingress, podcasts over Bluetooth...)
Good that you like your new phone anyway. My XSP will soon be 2 years old, and I think it might last another year.

I took this when my phone was overheating, so this is the lowest score I got on AnTuTu with Android 5.1

I have about the same score with stock 4.3 (26.819 actually), default io and scheduler.
But benchmarks are. just benchmarks.