Android upgrade on my elderly Sopny tablet?

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greypanther
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Android upgrade on my elderly Sopny tablet?

Post by greypanther » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 14:28

Hi there, quite a long while since I posted, but I need a little advice, here seemed a good place to get it. :)

I have an old, ( 5 years? :roll: ) Sony Xperia tablet, which seems to be reasonably specced, even compared to new options, ( 3GB RAM, 2.5 GHZ, ) but the problem is, it is no longer supported by Sony, so is stuck on Android 6.01! Sony do not appear to make tablets any more either, but that is beside the point.

It annoys me a great deal, to have to bin a perfectly working and adequate tablet, just because I appear to be having problems with some aps not running well on such an old version of Android. Is there any way to force an upgrade of Android? As far as I was aware Google do not charge for it, so in theory it should be doable, but I suspect it is more of that " built in redundancy! " :evil:

If nothing else, can you suggest a replacement Anroid tablet? :evil: :evil: :evil:

Thank you in advance. Oh and I know, I should buy Apple! :roll:
Last edited by greypanther on Tue, 16. Feb 21, 21:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by CBJ » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 14:51

From my experience, once Android updates stop for a device, that's it. There may be ways to bypass that and force newer versions to install, but even if there is, I wouldn't advise it because they wouldn't be tested.

As for a replacement, a Galaxy Tab A7 10.4" is a decent device.

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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by fiksal » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 17:33

It's not quite the end.


is your device in this list?
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/


I am in the similar boat with my OnePlus One phone. Mine is with extra memory, so it packs a punch, but upgrades to it stopped long ago. Awhile back, I've installed the Lineage OS, which is a fork from Android OSs.
There are some manual work, but it's not bad, depending on how used you are to command line. And at the end you have an unofficial OS, which comes with its own bugs and compatibility issues.

Some issues I've experienced :
- I had to find and custom install Netflix, because Play Store determined my device is too old for Netflix. It didnt matter that I had changed my OS. That took more digging, as I had to search it on apk websites, and get myself convinced to trust them.
- Some apps flat out refuse running on a custom OS / rooted. Oh well.
- Google apps need to be installed manually. Lineage has a guide for that as well.



In the devices list above you can click on the corresponding OS, and get pretty good instructions
just as example
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/mint
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/mint/install


Main site
https://lineageos.org/

All Downloads
https://download.lineageos.org/

Some other Install guides
https://wiki.lineageos.org/install_guides.html



P.S. I would never suggest you buy an Apple ;)
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by felter » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 19:01

Best advice I can give for Apple, is never buy Apple. They are anti-consumer and anti-repair, while their designs are not actually that good, mainly due to them skimping on materials to make an even greater profit. Their repair shops will lie to you to make you buy a new Apple appliance rather than make simple repairs. You will also have to buy all the essential accessories separately for the apple product, apple said they did this to cut back on waste, but by the time you have bought the essential accessories you have created 3 time the amount of waste that you would have if apple had just included the accessories in the first place, but then they wouldn't make as much money. So no never buy an apple product.

What you could do is replace the Android OS with a linux distro. I know a few that have turned their old Smartphone into hacking machines by installing Kali. I suspect most Linux os systems will install, especially as Android is just a Linux OS at heart.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by fiksal » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 19:07

felter wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 19:01
What you could do is replace the Android OS with a linux distro. I know a few that have turned their old Smartphone into hacking machines by installing Kali. I suspect most Linux os systems will install, especially as Android is just a Linux OS at heart.
That's not a bad idea for a Tablet.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by Chips » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 22:46

Just to point out that with Android OS - worth checking manufacturers update schedules. Most mobiles (tablets may be the same) it's 2 years and no more. I can't remember if that includes security past that 2 year point - but security updates are frequently gone within a few years. One of the reasons I stopped buying HTC phones (which were great) - they stopped doing security updates after just 2 years.

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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by fiksal » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 23:05

Chips wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 22:46
One of the reasons I stopped buying HTC phones (which were great) - they stopped doing security updates after just 2 years.
I dont know about modern, but first/original smart HTC phone, was a most durable phone I ever owned.

Other than just being old, I've dropped it once, down a ... 4-7 meter waterfall? I impacted a rock, came apart into three pieces (back plate, battery, and phone), then plunged into the water at the bottom. When I fished it out, which I didnt know I would be able to, and dried it, for 4 days - the phone turned on!

Other than dent on the metal backplate from the impact, there are no large cracks on the casing or the glass.

That thing still works by this day too, as my not regularly used off phone.


in comparison, Google's nexus button broke only months after I purchased it, and whole screen died month later. I also opened it, so that probably had something to do with screen death too.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by felter » Mon, 15. Feb 21, 23:17

It's Samsung that pisses me off. It's not their OS, security or quality, it's the junkware that they stick onto the things and you can't remove them, I don't need Samsung shop or the Samsung web browser, I'm not going to use them and they just take up what limited space I have, so I would like to remove them but you can't.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by BrasatoAlBarolo » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 08:55

fiksal wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 23:05
Chips wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 22:46
One of the reasons I stopped buying HTC phones (which were great) - they stopped doing security updates after just 2 years.
I dont know about modern, but first/original smart HTC phone, was a most durable phone I ever owned.

Other than just being old, I've dropped it once, down a ... 4-7 meter waterfall? I impacted a rock, came apart into three pieces (back plate, battery, and phone), then plunged into the water at the bottom. When I fished it out, which I didnt know I would be able to, and dried it, for 4 days - the phone turned on!

Other than dent on the metal backplate from the impact, there are no large cracks on the casing or the glass.

That thing still works by this day too, as my not regularly used off phone.


in comparison, Google's nexus button broke only months after I purchased it, and whole screen died month later. I also opened it, so that probably had something to do with screen death too.
On top on that, my very first actual smartphone (2008) was an HTC Touch Diamond: a masterpiece in design, it was impressive! It was out in Italy roughly the same time the first I-phone 3G came on the market, and that was a fricking salami chipping board! Yet everyone went there, both customers and (physiologically) developers. But I loved, as a developer myself, how MS os was easy to develop on. And it's a shame the it industry didn't follow up with the idea of having a single os for phones, tablets and pcs coming afterwards, there was so much potential there!
Btw: if it wasn't for software updates, that phone would currently be working.

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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by CBJ » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 09:18

felter wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 23:17
It's Samsung that pisses me off. It's not their OS, security or quality, it's the junkware that they stick onto the things and you can't remove them, I don't need Samsung shop or the Samsung web browser, I'm not going to use them and they just take up what limited space I have, so I would like to remove them but you can't.
Unfortunately most device manufacturers do the same. At least the junk Samsung installs is fairly harmless. If you buy a cheap Alcatel device, you get pre-installed adware, cunningly disguised as a calculator, which can then proceed to download more adware, some of it quite aggressive, if you accidentally click the wrong button when trying to dismiss one of the ads.

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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by BrasatoAlBarolo » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 09:35

CBJ wrote:
Tue, 16. Feb 21, 09:18
felter wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 23:17
It's Samsung that pisses me off. It's not their OS, security or quality, it's the junkware that they stick onto the things and you can't remove them, I don't need Samsung shop or the Samsung web browser, I'm not going to use them and they just take up what limited space I have, so I would like to remove them but you can't.
Unfortunately most device manufacturers do the same. At least the junk Samsung installs is fairly harmless. If you buy a cheap Alcatel device, you get pre-installed adware, cunningly disguised as a calculator, which can then proceed to download more adware, some of it quite aggressive, if you accidentally click the wrong button when trying to dismiss one of the ads.
Well, I mean, if you open the calculator you're CLEARLY interested in trading online. Come on, you can't fool us! :lol:

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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by Stars_InTheirEyes » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 15:20

greypanther wrote:
Mon, 15. Feb 21, 14:28
Thank you in advance. Oh and I know, I should buy Apple! :roll:
Apple do the exact same thing.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by Vertigo 7 » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 16:26

The question is how much do you want to spend and what's your use case? You could spend super big buck and go high end like a Surface Pro and get all the capabilities of Windows in your tablet with the added convenience of a dock to use it like a desktop PC, or you could go low end and get something to look at pictures and stream Netflix.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by greypanther » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 21:30

Thank you for the replies everyone, even if it was what I expected I guess! :)

I am afraid that I doubt I could manage a Linux instal on a tablet, or anywhere, but I do seem to remember someone here trying to show me how, maybe Alan Phipps? Maybe if I go back to that and a have a first try of installing one on an old laptop, maybe I would try a tablet...

Funnily enough, I was looking at the Galaxy A7, but did not click on it, after considering the bloat ware, but that is hard to avoid anywhere it seems.
@ Fiksal: No it is not on that list, so no worries there then, as I am lazy and that looks like more effort than I would get a return on! :D
@Vertigo7: Well, obviously I want to stream Netflix and Prime to my TV, via my tablet, which is normally easy, but I also want to control a couple of things via software on my tablet. ( Astronomy related. :) ) I suspect that as this current tablet is still doing that limited control, without a problem, I should stick where I am, until I need more power, when I will go via a laptop or even Rasberry pi ( if that is what it is called. ) I will use my cheap phone, to stream and keep calm and carry on for now. It is annoying that it is the streaming apps, that seem to struggle to be honest, because on the face of it, to a simpole person like me, they should be the simplest thing to implement. Shouldn't they?

Further annoyance is, why the need to upgrade the apps constantly anyway? If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it?

A quick step onto my soapbox: ( Nods to Greta! :roll: ) It really does piss me off, they way our society seems to be going with an increasing pace, with this ever increasing throw away culture! If it breaks, just buy a replacement, online and screw the enviroment a bit more! After all we have such an excess of resources on this wonderful planet, eh? :cry:

I suspect there could be several very steep learning curves ahead...
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 21:34

Sorry, not me guv. I'm not a Linux user. :)
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by greypanther » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 21:38

:lol: Sorry about that Alan...
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Re: Android upgrade on my elderly Sopny tablet?

Post by berth » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 23:05

I've got the Xperia Z3 tablet with an 8" screen, I've had it for a while. I use it for casual games, mostly. Is that the same one? If so, my question would be, how desperate are you to use these new apps?
Personally, I like the form factor - I find 10" devices a bit cumbersome - but not many people are making smaller tablets these days, it seems.

The touchscreen on mine was acting up a while ago so I was looking around for potential replacements and spotted the Galaxy Tab A8. It's suspiciously cheap but similarly specced to the Z3.
I've experienced the Samsung bloatware before with a phone I once had. I ended up giving to my sister who subsequently was forced back into the Apple fold ("it just works" etc etc).

Luckily, the screen issue has resolved its self so I can kick this particular can down the road some more :)

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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by felter » Tue, 16. Feb 21, 23:57

greypanther wrote:
Tue, 16. Feb 21, 21:30

Further annoyance is, why the need to upgrade the apps constantly anyway? If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it?
That I can partially answer. The problem is that apps are full of security loopholes, that nefarious people want to exploit. If the app is connected to the internet this can lead to a pretty serious breach, especially as a lot of people have banking details on the same appliance as those apps. So when these apps are found to have a security risk, they have to be updated to protect the user of said app. Another one is that new appliances have newer hardware that the old version of an app does not utilise so has to be updated to take advantage of the newer hardware 5G could be an example. Of course when they update to take advantage of the new hardware, this also normally creates security flaws which they then once again have to update to fix those flaws. Rinse and repeat, the cycle goes on. :P
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by Vertigo 7 » Wed, 17. Feb 21, 00:37

greypanther wrote:
Tue, 16. Feb 21, 21:30
I will use my cheap phone, to stream and keep calm and carry on for now. It is annoying that it is the streaming apps, that seem to struggle to be honest, because on the face of it, to a simpole person like me, they should be the simplest thing to implement. Shouldn't they?
To be perfectly honest, I would never expect to get reliable performance from streaming something to your phone or tablet then streaming that to your tv. You're going wireless to wireless that way and just that alone is going to cause severe performance degradation and quality loss. You would be much better served by cutting out one leg of that wireless, probably easiest with a cheap streaming device like a roku or amazon fire stick or something you can just attach to an HDMI port on your TV. For the best experience, I'd highly recommend a dedicated set top box with wired network capability like an Apple TV 4k. Even those aren't that expensive. If you're a gamer, an Xbox or PlayStation would do the trick as well.
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Re: Android upgrade on my elkderly Sopny tablet?

Post by Chips » Fri, 19. Feb 21, 11:25

felter wrote:
Tue, 16. Feb 21, 23:57
That I can partially answer. The problem is that apps are full of security loopholes, that nefarious people want to exploit. If the app is connected to the internet this can lead to a pretty serious breach, especially as a lot of people have banking details on the same appliance as those apps.
This. The apps should say what their updates include though (and whether extra permissions or not).

But also bear in mind Grey that the operating system on said tablets/phones and other items stop receiving even critical security updates far sooner than you'd hope. For most mobile phone vendors of Android it's 2 years for updates, and 3 years before critical updates are stopped I believe. I stopped buying HTC products for this precise reason - loved their design and feel (and they were affordable at the time), but within 2 years you weren't getting security updates for the OS anymore (especially if the supplier such as T-Mobile then had their own tweak on top), let alone upgrades/updates to the OS in general.

Apple run on for about 5-7 years of supplying updates/critical updates. You may pay a premium for the device, but you may only need 1 in 5-7 years instead of 2-3 android ones. Depends upon what you use it for though. Being shrewd and careful you could be fine indefinitely on out of date OS; its not like as soon as the support stops you're immediately compromised - and keeping it bang up to date doesn't mean you won't get compromised either!

You can check the release of your OS on the tablet and do a search to see how out of date it is, and what vulnerabilities may have been discovered. There may have been nothing significant, there may have been patches, it's worth finding out to what degree and being aware.

But I'd also consider all that if you're planning on upgrading - factor into the cost/effectiveness. A small laptop may suffice better?

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