Bugs and annoyances after the first firmware-update

Sony Ericsson released only two firmware-updates. The first update was a disaster. The phone was more or less un-usable due to heavy crashing and freezing. On my previous blog i was counting how many times i had to boot my phone. After the update, it was more or less pointless to keep counting.  Before the first update the phone crashed a couple of times per day, but after the first update (MR1), i lost count.

The Sony Ericsson Experia X2 with the MR1 firmware  crashed up to 30 times per day!! That makes it 2,5 times per hour during the daytime!! I missed a dozen of calls, and probably multiple orders and deals.

At this point i got pretty pissed off, and i sent an e-mail to Aaron Duke (firstname.lastname@sonyericsson.com), the project manager of the Sony Ericsson X2.  I mailed him the links to my blogs, and after a short time  he replied that he wanted to talk to me about the problems with the X2. We set up a time and date, and he called me. I explained about the worst bugs in found in the MR1 Firmware, and and to the end of the call he suggested that he would send me a new X2 with the current developer-version of the firmware.

A week later i got the Xperia X2 with a pre-release firmware,  and started testing. The firmware was much better, and it was pretty stable. It contained the new Windows Mobile 6.5.3 that got the start-button placed in the bottom of the screen to the left. I reported during a couple weeks a bunch of bugs, and some of them where fixed. After these weeks, the software was freezed, and prepared for releaes.  The MR2 update was released in the end of May 2010, and it fixed many bugs and disasters the MR1-firmware containded.

Now about a year later, i'm pretty sure that i got the Sony Ericsson gave me the X2 just to keep my mouth shut. This makes me dissapointed, because i found several bugs that got not fixed, and after the release of MR2, i found some new bugs.

Initial release of the Sony Ericssn Xperia X2: Original firmware

The release-firmware and the first software-update of the phone, called MR1 was just a mess. The bugs i found where simply amazing.  A phone marketed for business-users was more or less useless with all the bugs. I personally lost multiple clients because of a non-functioning phone!

I started to write down all the problems i found on a popular forum. I just could not believe this. I found tons of critical and annoying bugs that made my everyday life just horrible. Please note, that some of these bugs are still there in the final and last software-update. These errors i will comment in a later post:

1. Starting the phone did not automatically bring you to the PIN-code screen. The PIN-screen dissapeard in the background if you where not waiting for it showing up during the startup-process. This happened a lot to me, because of the ridiculously slow start-up process. I could not just sit and wait and do nothing...
   
   If i missed the PIN-screen, and forgot that i restarted the phone, i happily thought that the phone was running normally.
   
   
2. Windows Mobile lacks sound-profiles. There are just three: Normal, Silent and Wibrate. To adjust your volumes between Office and Outdoors, you had to adjust it every time manually by two sliders in the volume-control.. What on earth?? A sound-profile means that I should be able to pick a setting for everything that has to do with how the phone behaves, like turn off with just one selection the vibration for incoming e-mails, but leave it on for incoming SMS:s. During night i don't want my phone to vibrate for incoming e-mails, but during the day yes! This is a stupid limitation in core Windows Mobile. To fix this i would imagine that an app handling these settings would have done the job!
   
   
3. The alarm was useless in the initial firmware-release. Either the alarm-app, or the phone crashed more or less every night, so i had to get a separate alarm to get me up every morning! It was embarrassing to come late to a morning-meeting.
   
   
4. SMS-alarms (sound and light) did not work when the phone's screen was off.
   
   
5. WIFI: It worked nicely the first week, but after this it did not connect anymore to my router, or any other router. To solve this, i had to do a factory-reset, and re-install the whole operating-system... Somehow this felt like normal Windows!
   
   
6. All settings for maintaining the phone's functionality are more or less spread around, and finding all needed setting, takes too much time. Why not having the functions grouped into one application, in the way the old Sony Ericsson phones had.. (k800i, t610, t68)? I want to point out that this again is a Windows Mobile limitation. To fix this, there should be an app that would handle this task!
   
   
7. The phone is slow.. I can't stop repeating myself. It's ridiculously SLOW!!! It's like watching paint dry when you want to do something quick.. I can't stop pointing out this issue. A modern smartphone that has a lag of up to a couple of seconds between different screens is not normal anymore. My old K800i was faster! Also my ancient T68 was faster!!!!
   
   
8. Every time the phone crashes/hangs, and i have to remove the battery to restart it, the sound-profile got reset to the factory defaults. This resulted in having the default crappy windows-mobile ring- and sms-tone activated. I had to manually select my ring-melody and SMS-alert tone.
   
   
9. The phone did also reset the ring-signal randomly to the default ring-signal several times per day...  So the phone did not nessesary have to completely crash to accomplish this.
   
10. The phone's lock can't be set to ask for the code/password only during startup. This makes it unconvienient to use, when it asks the password only after a certain time. I suspect that the phone also lacks the option to clear the data/require a password if someone inserts a new SIM-card in the phone... All my previous phones had this option (that's 17 years of mobilephone-history...). I think that this is a security-limitation, because if some steals my phone, i don't want him/her to be able to get into my private data.
    
    
11. Browsing images you have been taking with the phone is not worth the effort.. It's soo SLOW, that you don't want to do that.. Multiple seconds to scroll from one picture to an other is not what you want. So the joy of a pretty ok camera is not there..
    
    
12. Something in the phone also occasionally crashed in a way that the screen got messed up like this. This still happens with most recent firmwares.
    

    

    New screen-art! :-(

13. The initial firmware also froze down completely after 3 weeks. I could not not open my e-mails, could not read my SMS:s, and i could not get get a decent backup on my sms-messages..  The only solution was to do a complete re-install the whole darn operationg-system.. 3 weeks after the last reinstall of the X2.
    
14. It looks that the X2 has problems charging the battery. A couple of times when I had the phone charged over night, the battery level was less than 30%. The phone was extremely hot, and you could barely hold it.
    
    
15. The limitation of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 phonebook is really idiotic. Most of my contacts have a more than one GSM-number: One for work, and an other for their private life. This makes it tricky if i want to send an SMS to both of these numbers: It is possible to write an SMS to just one number specific number for a contact. Also the "speed" dial button in the SPB-shell shows just a fixed type of numbers: I can't have two different work-numbers, or two different home-numbers. So, for me to dial for example the second home-number with the speed-dial button with the Spb Mobile Shell Lifestyle or Spb Mobile Shell Professional does not work. I have to open the contact, and find the second number from there...
    
    What i miss from the phonebook/contacts record is a way where i can specify what type of number the each number is.. (Mobile, Fixed line etc. etc..) This is how it works in the ancient nokia 9300 phone!
    
    
16. The phone has always had problems with receiving sms-messages. I occasionally get contacted by customers who are wondering why do not reply to their messages. According to the sender, the message was delivered, but the phone just lost the incoming SMS!
    
    
17. I complained about the sound-settings/profiles in the phone. Here is a new example why the windows-way of handling the sound-settings sucks!
    I want to use the alarm for getting up in the morning. I don't want to hear the beeps from incoming email or SMS:s. To achieve both things is IMPOSSIBLE. I can turn off all warning-sounds from programs, but to turn off the sounds for email and messages, disables also the alarm. So, you can't get a silent phone that just wakes you up in the morning. There is a setting to let alarms through if you have your phone on silent, but that's working if you are in a meeting, in the movies/theatre etc...
    
    
18. I got two DEAD PIXELS. The first was there right from the beginning when unboxing the phone!
    
    
19. The phone does not handle automatic timezone/time updates correctly with the initial firmware. One day after I returned from a two weeks trip, i got within 24 hours at least 5 inquerys about that if i want to update the timezone. Options are: Yes, Yes (update and shut down service) and No (shut down the service). not sure about the exact phrase, but you'll get the point. I want to set the current timezone and time, but i don't want to shut down this service, because next time I travel, i want the time to be set again.. So, can't this stupid phone just update the time, and ask me next time i travel??
    
    
20. The camera.. It's pointless to use the camera, because starting the camera-app takes ages. at the point the camera-app has started, you've missed whatever you wanted to take a picture of..
    
    
21. Scrolling with the screen with your finger/stylo without lifting it from the screen catches false clicks. You end up in opening unwanted applications or clicking on links on web-pages, calling people etc. etc...
    
    
22. The way many Windows Mobile apps handles saving data is just pure idiotism. Most of them save it in the phone's memory. Each time i need to update/reinstall the firmware i have to find these files for separate bacakup. For example one app that i have been using is the "On The Road" panel for tracking my my driving. The drive log-files are saved on the phone, and there is no setting where i could choose if i would like to save the file on the SD-card. A reinstall would delete these drive-logs, and you would loose all your tracks..
    
    
23. After a re-install of the firmware (this deletes everything you've saved on the phone's memory) the apps you installed on your SD-card wont appear as installed applications. I have to re-install them again.
    
    
24. The X2 displays names to numbers wrong in the outgoing-calls list!! When I'm using a 9-number long prefix-number to call my sister abroad (voipdiscount.com), this entry in the list is picked from an other saved number with the same voipdiscoint-prefix! In this case if i call my sister, i get a wrong name in the list!!!
    
    
25. I never timed this before, but taking time how much it takes to start up the phone from pushing the powerbutton, and coming to a state that you actually can punch in a phonenumber and make your first call takes 3 minutes 42 seconds.. If you need to do an emergency-call and have to power-up the phone from scratch, your victim has mostlikely already died...
    
    
26. Occasionally the E-mail/SMS app does not recognize that i slide out the keyboard. IE still seemed to work. Again, removing the battery is the cure...