Sony Xperia X10 Users Finally Get to Taste an Old Eclair, Android 2.1

Consumers spent Tuesday morning bashing Sony Ericsson and AT&T for announcing today that it has begun upgrading Xperia X10 phones to Android 2.1, or "Eclair"—the version of Android launched in January 2010.

"WOW!!! And you guys are actually excited to announce this. SE has just lost the plot," wrote one user at Sony Ericsson's blog.

On Tuesday, Sony Ericsson announced the manual update to Android 2.1 in a blog post: "We couldn't be more excited to bring you the news we have for you today. After much hard-work, we are happy to announce that the Android 2.1 upgrade will be available for AT&T XperiaTM X10 customers in the US starting Tuesday, May 31. We can't thank you enough for your patience."

The announcement was met with more sarcasm than the usual tech post, with responses like "Thats great news...everybody open up a bottle of campaign (sic) and lets celebrate this!!se you are a joke!!and a bad one!!" and "No wonder why sony always get hacked, good luck with this."

Xperia X10 users in the U.S. have reason to be annoyed. Android 2.1 is a minor platform update that Google launched in January 2010. The update gives Xperia X10 devices 720p HD video capture, multi-touch support, continuous autofocus on the camera, face detection during video capture, and expanded homescreen support. Click here to download instructions for manually upgrading your phone.

Sony Ericsson can't be blamed entirely for the holdup. In fact, it first announced the upgrade last November for users in Europe and Australia. AT&T had "no comment" on the U.S. delay.

According to Android Developers' May stats, only 24.5 percent of all smartphones still run Android 2.1, a vast improvement from last November when the figure was 77 percent. Since then 70.2 percent of all smartphones have been upgraded to Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above.

In the U.S., the Xperia X10 series launched in August through AT&T and with an outdated version of Android, 1.6.

PCmag

Sony Xperia X10 Users Finally Get to Taste an Old Eclair, Android 2.1

Consumers spent Tuesday morning bashing Sony Ericsson and AT&T for announcing today that it has begun upgrading Xperia X10 phones to Android 2.1, or "Eclair"—the version of Android launched in January 2010.

"WOW!!! And you guys are actually excited to announce this. SE has just lost the plot," wrote one user at Sony Ericsson's blog.

On Tuesday, Sony Ericsson announced the manual update to Android 2.1 in a blog post: "We couldn't be more excited to bring you the news we have for you today. After much hard-work, we are happy to announce that the Android 2.1 upgrade will be available for AT&T XperiaTM X10 customers in the US starting Tuesday, May 31. We can't thank you enough for your patience."

The announcement was met with more sarcasm than the usual tech post, with responses like "Thats great news...everybody open up a bottle of campaign (sic) and lets celebrate this!!se you are a joke!!and a bad one!!" and "No wonder why sony always get hacked, good luck with this."

Xperia X10 users in the U.S. have reason to be annoyed. Android 2.1 is a minor platform update that Google launched in January 2010. The update gives Xperia X10 devices 720p HD video capture, multi-touch support, continuous autofocus on the camera, face detection during video capture, and expanded homescreen support. Click here to download instructions for manually upgrading your phone.

Sony Ericsson can't be blamed entirely for the holdup. In fact, it first announced the upgrade last November for users in Europe and Australia. AT&T had "no comment" on the U.S. delay.

According to Android Developers' May stats, only 24.5 percent of all smartphones still run Android 2.1, a vast improvement from last November when the figure was 77 percent. Since then 70.2 percent of all smartphones have been upgraded to Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above.

In the U.S., the Xperia X10 series launched in August through AT&T and with an outdated version of Android, 1.6.

PCmag

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 users face CPU throttling problem

Lenovo's recently released ThinkPad X220 notebook is suffering from a throttling down CPU, Lenovo admitted on its forums. This occurs even despite the max performance mode being enabled and the device plugged in. The CPU will go down to its lowest state, and the issue is likely to affect the T420/T520 notebooks as well.

There are ways to get around this, though they come at a cost. The more extreme method is to disable Intel's Speedstep or CPU Power Management in the BIOS. The former forces the processor to work at a high speed and voltage which leads to the battery draining very quickly. The latter method has a less significant effect on battery life, and uses between 2.5W and 3W more than when it's enabled.

A similar issue plagued older ThinkPads but the fixes developed for them in Windows do not fix the issue in the X220's case. A BIOS update may be the only true fix for the issue.

When the CPU drops to its lowest performance level, whether it's the base 2.1GHz Core i3, the range-topping 2.7GHz Core i7 or anything in between, random write speeds of the SSD and HDD are significantly reduced as well.

Electronista

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 users face CPU throttling problem

Lenovo's recently released ThinkPad X220 notebook is suffering from a throttling down CPU, Lenovo admitted on its forums. This occurs even despite the max performance mode being enabled and the device plugged in. The CPU will go down to its lowest state, and the issue is likely to affect the T420/T520 notebooks as well.

There are ways to get around this, though they come at a cost. The more extreme method is to disable Intel's Speedstep or CPU Power Management in the BIOS. The former forces the processor to work at a high speed and voltage which leads to the battery draining very quickly. The latter method has a less significant effect on battery life, and uses between 2.5W and 3W more than when it's enabled.

A similar issue plagued older ThinkPads but the fixes developed for them in Windows do not fix the issue in the X220's case. A BIOS update may be the only true fix for the issue.

When the CPU drops to its lowest performance level, whether it's the base 2.1GHz Core i3, the range-topping 2.7GHz Core i7 or anything in between, random write speeds of the SSD and HDD are significantly reduced as well.

Electronista

iPhone Users to Receive Location Database Fix Soon

iPhone users will receive a free iOS 4.3.3 software upgrade within the next couple of weeks, which among other things will offer location database fixes.

The BGR reports that Apple will release iOS 4.3.3 within the next couple of weeks. This software upgrade will ensure that the iPhone will no longer back up the location database to iTunes, reduce the size of the location database, as well as make it possible to shut down the location database when Location Services are turned off.

Apple recently issued an official FAQ related to location services, where the company stated that the location database will also be encrypted in the next major release of iOS. The company is expected to unveil iOS 5 in June, but it's still unclear when that software upgrade will reach a public release.

The iPhone 5 is currently rumored to be released in late September or early October, and it's natural to believe that iOS 5 will make its debut around that time. A recent leak also revealed that the MobileMe service will go by the name iCloud in time for the iPhone 5 launch.

Infosync