Party Vibe

@Gylfi Sigurðsson 558598 wrote:

Thats the thing its running the latest version of Android, as far as I can tell Sony are flat out refusing to release updated/upgraded software and firewear. if I was to talk to trading standards would they be able to help? I feel I have been sold a faulty product.

What version of Android did it come with?

I would suggest backing up all the important files like music, contacts etc then rolling it back to whatever version it came with, EU law means Sony would have to at least support this. Unfortunately this device may only be guaranteed or certified to work with certain versions – a lot of the functions on a mobile phones that transmit radio signals are now controlled by software rather than hardware chips. This means firmware updates increasingly often have to be approved by each nations Communications Ministry and often the Defence authorities (some bits of 3G/4G mobile frequencies are still adjacent to NATO allocations), and in small countries like UK or NL these ministries are more cautious as stray radio interference is more of a problem than the USA or Canada.

I noticed that the two blackberry handsets I own (one of which I still use) have a (!) after the CE mark (you increasingly see this on wifi routers). This is a warning marker used throughout Europe for radio equipment that if not set up properly can cause things to go pear shaped for other users of the frequency bands. Looking at a review of an early model of this phone there are notes that functions to switch on and off bluetooth, GPS etc independently are absent which hints at corners being cut on the RF side of this device, and/or they are trying to get too much out of it whilst remaining within European specifications.

Unfortunately telecom providers, handset manufacturers and Android devs only begrudgingly work together and try and protect their intellectual property – it wasn’t so long ago that that in Europe every communications device could only be obtained via the PTT or Post Office (they did allow commercial companies to make the equipment but it had to be produced to agreed specifications). This meant it often cost more, wasn’t delivered next day and had less features, but it did actually work as the PTT would make all the bosses of the commercial organisations sit round a table (often in Copenhagen) and bang their heads together until they agreed on common protocols (many of these are still used today, including those that todays smartphones are still based on).

in the 1990s I worked on computer control systems for some very high priced kit used by global broadcasters (including a lot of Sony stuff) and the quality control of this was already shocking. At least it wasn’t safety critical or folk would have got hurt or killed.

The only real difference between a smartphone and any other Android device is the RF section (which is a bit more complex than a standard wifi / bluetooth chipset). Clearly the more skilled engineers either stayed with or went back to what is still Ericsson (though the quality of the RF kit in most wireless devices has declined over the last few years across Europe).

Around 2007 an Ofcom man turned up in the area I work in looking for a LPD (low power device, the sort of thing used for small remote controls) which had stuck on transmit and was stopping people getting into their cars, setting off doorbells and alarms and all sorts else. was having some banter with him about how I was once a pirate broadcaster and would have gone looking for it with my radio scanner, but it had packed up shortly after moving to Ipswich (it had been carted around various rave sites for about 6 years beforehand when fed were still on analogue)

He actively encouraged me to buy a new one (and basically said as long as you don’t attack whoever has the offending device it would be OK to foxhunt it) and said that “cops and ambos are all digital now as are wireless phones”, so Ofcom were no longer bothered about folk with scanners.

Civilian maritime and aircraft comms is deliberately kept analogue so people can listen in and use less complex equipment for communication what he did say (as I live within reception radio range of a part of the Orwell) was if I ever heard MAYDAY or PAN PAN and no one at the marinas or coastguard responded to call the Coastguard using a landline phone (mobile base stations aren’t always reliable in East Anglia!), and it was a good thing that some younger people are still interested in how wireless kit actually works and what limitations exist with it”. He also showed on one of those portable Rhode & Schwartz spectrum monitors how many different transmissions were in the air and said that “if people aren’t careful about what sort of signals are transmitted and how hardware and software is connected, you will be lucky if any of your gadgets work correctly in 10 years time”.