Reports have been coming in that a few Sony Xperia Z handsets have been dropping dead for no apparently reason. Users have been posting their grievances on forums, without so much as a clue to the causative agent. Apparently, some phones are being reported to have gone into a sleep-like state, and users aren’t able to ‘wake’ them up.
The Xperia Z was unveiled at this year’s CES towards the beginning of January, and was seen along with the very similar ZL. It was only early last month when we received release information in the UK, and at the start of this month, the water-proof gadget went on sale in India. Apart from its slim form factor and 13MP camera on the back, it also employs a 1.5GHz quad core Qualcomm processor and 2GB of RAM.
It comes with Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) and 16GB of on-board storage which can be expanded via a microSD card slot. A 5-inch capacitive touch screen display is capable of having images and video broadcasted at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, while the Mobile Bravia Engine 2 makes sure visuals are crisp. A 2MP front-facing camera allows for video chat.
Getting back to the matter at hand, website Xperia Blog is reporting that the Japanese manufacturer has ventured a reply on a forum, stating that the company is aware of the issue and that the problem has been identified. It has also been revealed that a fix for the same will be implemented in the next software update for the device.
So when can Z smartphone users expect said update? Unfortunately, there’s no word on that, leaving owners with few options at their disposal, other than replacing the phone or trading it in for something else completely.
For now, the only (temporary) fix seems to be pressing the power button and volume up button together and holding them down for about 10 seconds. This constitutes what is called a hard or cold restart. And even with this technique, some users are reporting failure to get the handset to switch back on.
Sony Xperia Z owners will just have to wait until the company decides it is ready to announce something official. But until then, they will have to bear the phone unpredictably going dead.