[XPERIA X10 General] kantk20111:
Welcome to the all-in-one place to find out anything there is to possibly know about the official upcoming Gingerbread update for the X10. Woohoo.

Note:this is a mashup of many sources. The only thing I take credit for is mashing it all up into one post. Many other users made all these news bits possible, and credit goes to many for keeping us updated as well.

LAST UPDATED:30 JULY 2011

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So, here it goes.

What we know

The update is coming out early August 2011

This will update the X10 to Android 2.3.3

The update will wipe all user data. Look below for how to backup and restore your data.

ALL generic kits (unbranded) will get the 2.3.3 update. People on contracts MIGHT NOT get the update, it depends on the phone company and whether they are willing to update. That is not in SE's control.

The update will include Xperia Arc apps, including (but not limited to) full Facebook Inside Xperia, Media discovery widget, new Timescape, new Music app with Equalizer

The update will include the 2.1 Eclair X10 Camera UI

The update will NOT include DLNA support

The update WILL add native tethering/hotspot, Apps to SD, and Adobe flash support

The update will include most of the Arc UI, including the new launcher

The update will only be released through the PC programs Sony Ericsson Update Service or PC Companion. You cannot update it On the Air, aka through the phone.

There will be no multitouch, and instead keep the buggy dualtouch we have now.

It will be impossible to go back to stock 2.1 once the update is released (officially, still possible if phone is flashable).

What is tentative/What we DO NOT know

Rikard has made a comment on the blog mentioning a few things about his PROTOTYPE X10 gingerbread he got. This is what he said. I say this is TENTATIVE because it is a prototype build he has and is subject to change.

The update WILL NOT add 16m colors, WILL NOT have an unlocked bootloader

The update MIGHT uncap the FPS. Rikard has said that they are working on it, but that's all the info we have right now.

The X10 is being tested on Android 2.3.4, apparently.

We don't know if Gingerbread on our X10s will be rootable immediately.

There are some doubts when taking into consideration the Arc 2.3.3 firmware, in which the X10 GB is based

We don't know if we will be able to downgrade with FlashTool to the rootable 2.1.

If the bootloader unlock is released, we might be able to flash kernels that allow root exploit/busybox installation etc.

What's the big deal? Why is this any different than the custom ROMs, or stock Android 2.1?\

There are many, crucial differences between this GB update and the stock 2.1 and the custom ROMs right now. Firstly, Gingerbread is much faster than 2.1 Eclair, almost 4-5 times faster. The software itself has been so heavily tweaked since 2.1, that it's a completely new OS, and a much better one. The improvements don't stop at speed either. New functionality has been added. There is now native tethering, like what is present on the iPhone 4, so you don't need an app to tether, it's there in the OS. Another crucial feature is Apps to SD. You can move your apps to your SD card, which means you can free up much more space and have much more apps than the 350 odd MB you only had before.also, Adobe flash will also be supported so you can watch YouTube, or any flash video, right from your browser.

As for custom ROMs. Yes, they're great, like Jerpeplea's CM7 Gingerbread, or Trip's GB MIUI. But, they're not fully functional. One of their biggest shortcomings is a lack of 8MP camera. That won't happen until SE update their drivers to work with Gingerbread, and that will only happen when they release the official version. Also, due to kernel incompatibilities (running 2.3 on a 2.1 kernel), there are instability problems that can be ironed out immediately after SE release their update. So, if you don't like the bloatware SE put on their stock ROM, just wait a few days after release and it's guaranteed that the devs would have finally finished, fully, a working, and fast, custom ROM :)

A crucial point to remember

This update will wipe all your data, including SMSs, apps, contacts, etc. Contacts should be taken care of with google sync, but to backup your SMS and Apps, I suggest to do the following.

1.Root the phone using Flashtool

2.Download, from the market, Titanium Backup/Mybackup Root AND Mybackup (regular one). Then, backup everything you want.

The regular mybackup will be used to backup your SMSes, playlists and APKS (NOT YOUR APK DATA). The Mybackup Root will be used to backup your APK DATA (saves for games, stuff like that), since root is required to save data.

That said, there's a problem to this. When GB comes out, it might take some time for the devs to root the phone, so you won't be able to restore your app data for a while because Mybackup Root won't work, but all stuff backed up using regular Mybackup will restore fine.

Also, things saved on the SD card will not be affected.

Videos and Sources

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Sources:

http://blogs.sonyericsson.com/products/2011/03/25/update-on-xperia™-x10/

http://blogs.sonyericsson.com/products/2011/06/20/update-on-gingerbread-for-xperia™-x10/

http://www.sonyericsson.com/br/preview/categoria/aparelhos/xperia-x10

http://blogs.sonyericsson.com/products/2011/07/29/good-news-for-friday