yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
The latest. 28 lollipop update does bring changes to the camera. Mostly positive improvements.

The metering and dynamic range is improved and as such the camera isn't as light sensitive as it became after 4.4.4.

The photos are also clearer, cleaner and less noisy than on previous firmware.

These two factors result in better photo quality at higher iso values making lowlight and indoor shots much better.

Auto iso is also more conservative than on previous firmware. At least at full res. Still seems to be rather gung ho at 8mp and SA.

Speaking of SA, not much improvement unfortunately. Slight improvement in white balance under natural light but it's still too cold.

It's not all positive though, sharpness is reduced although not by much. Probably as a result of the increased noise reduction.

For me, the camera software is a blend of 4.4.2 and 4.4.4.

It's got metering, dynamics, iso performance and noise reduction closer to 4.4.2 and sharpness closer to 4.4.4. A middle ground of sorts.

Another negative is that taking photos with lower iso say 50 and 100 indoors is very difficult. The camera uses a very slow shutter of 1/8s more often than not making focus harder to achieve.

On the flip side, it's got better performance at higher values so a consolation of sorts. I've been using iso auto since yesterday and have been reasonably happy with the results so far. Something I've never been able to do on the z2 hitherto.

All in all, I'll say it's the best camera software to date for the z2.
[Xperia Z2 General] Destroyedbeauty:
What update!? O.o
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
The 23.1.A.1.28 update!
[Xperia Z2 General] churchrickshaw:
I'm on the .726 rom, rooted. The standby drain is about 300ma and spikes to 700ma sometimes. This standby drain should be very low, as my previous LG G2 was only 13mah. Seems that when the screen is on, its standard drain is too high to be normal.

I'm using the current widger rom rmdroider to measure this. I upgraded straight to LP so cannot comment on whether this is normal in KK.

any one have this issue?
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
No issues for me, just lower your brightness and not full, and dont use your phone as a game console, did you do a clean install btw ?
[Xperia Z2 General] effective:
As a high user of the camera im so happy to read these positive comments about the camera improvement.I hope you are right about them ^^.Can't wait to get the update and start testing.
[Xperia Z2 General] chawlasrijan:
Guys, is the Stamina Mode working for you peeps??

Mobile Data & Wifi does not turn off when i turn the screen off :(

How does it even work, never used it on KK, Never on Lollipop, thought of giving it a try but failed to see any improvements in battery life & no settings got changed.

Thank you for your time :)
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
The camera is still best used at full res and with manual controls. SA is still very much in need of improvement. The improved noise control does help somewhat but SA is still SA.

I say best used in manual mode at full res because that only has a top iso of 800 so auto iso can be used with exposure compensation. At 8mp the iso goes all the way up to 3200 which possess more problems than it solves in my view.

All in all, the camera is improved!
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
Thanks, very valuable!

Just downloading now.

Pity there is no OTA anymore?

I am curious about my own camera findings.

I loved the latest one!

Edit:

Seems to be working great.

Question: now on 20mpx Manual Mode the ISO can be Auto or Manual but only up to 800.

On 8mpx the ISO Manual can go up to 3200.

Did they screw us here?

I did some tests but have to do more.

I feel the camera is great, but I am not sure if the detail in difficult lighting wasn't better before.

Marginally though.
[Xperia Z2 General] chochic10:
Am i the only one noticing the extremely low volume in lollipop update? In 4.4.4 the volume is extremely loud. The loudest ive ever heard in a handset. But on lollipop (.726) the sound volume is reduced in half. And from 50% below, you can barely hear anything. This bug is most noticeable on youtube videos.. Some of my video files and mp3 still plays loud but on youtube and games, the sound is noticeable low compared to kitkat.. And i mean extremely low... Can anyone confirm they have this problem too? I dont want to root my phone.. Hoping the new firmware will fix this...
[Xperia Z2 General] Private Snowball:
I have the same Problem. Clean installed System with full wipe. Another thing i noticed, when notifications pop up, the sound in games gets muted, and after few seconds it normally resumes to normal, but sometimes it stays muted. Testing later the new Version.
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
Iso has always been limited to 800 at full res. I can understand why in a way. With such large photos, very high iso values would produce incredibly noisy images hence the limitation to 8mp.

Here are some examples of old vs new firmware. One night scene with crops and another daylight scene also with 100% crops.

Bear in mind that the old firmware shots were taken a while ago while the new firmware shots a few days ago so the scenes aren't totally identical.

The night scene gives the best idea of the changes because the lighting conditions are virtually identical. Both photos were taken at iso 400 with exposure compensated to -1. The new firmware photo shows better focus, detail and clarity than the old firmware shot. In fact I was a bit further away from the subject in the new firmware photo so that further emphasises the improvements. The new firmware shot also used a slower shutter of 1/8s as opposed to the 1/10s old firmware shot but still focused better.

The daylight shots in my opinion show the improvements /changes to the metering and dynamic range. The new firmware has a more balanced exposure and as such there's much less glaring from the sunlight. Note, the sun's intensity was about the same for both pictures. Obviously as both photos were taken weeks apart, the lighting isn't identically but close enough in my opinion.

Here the daylight new firmware shot is clearer and cleaner but I believe the old firmware photo is a bit sharper. Notice the brickwork on the building near the bank logo.

White balance was also set to daylight for both photos but the old firmware produced a warmer and somewhat colour inaccurate picture. The building being focused on is more accurately rendered in the new firmware photo. Having said that, white balance on new firmware tends to be cooler in daylight than on old firmware so there's more need to crank it up all the way to the cloudy option than there was previously.

https://drive.google.com/folder/d/0Bw8cqm6mE3osSHNTWUkzWUZFcFE/edit
[Xperia Z2 General] B1nny:
Have you tried alpha 2 yet? There is a specific version for Lollipop.
[Xperia Z2 General] Farooq95:
Not all but yeah its not fully complete though.
[Xperia Z2 General] chesterr:
How do you install it without a recovery?

And if you did with flashing a kernel, I honestly don't think, it won't work that way.

---------- Post added at 03:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:37 AM ----------

All the messaging apps bro, Check Viber WhatsApp and WeChat :(
[Xperia Z2 General] Brontok:
has anyone else experianced settings lag ? try deleting previous tasks and then entering the settings menu.. the lag is just unbearable ( not mentioning the blue status bar )
[Xperia Z2 General] beniamin24:
[MENTION=987637]B1nny[/MENTION] tell us your method and files if it works for you
[Xperia Z2 General] Zonium:
You guys should try change themes if you have problem with blue status bar. White theme have grey status bar, orange theme have orange, blue theme blue status bar.....
[Xperia Z2 General] arash.mid:
x-reality and super vivid are not working on z2??!!
[Xperia Z2 General] light19940120:
Where are location based wifi and xloud?
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
Bro [MENTION=4898987]beniamin24[/MENTION]

For what we need recovery for to install the app Xposed installer by rovo ? It needs only root like on 4.4.4 i think or am i wrong ?

Use search button dude and you will find this in Themes/apps

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=3057267
[Xperia Z2 General] beniamin24:
My friend at first i flashed a 4.4.4 kernel so i can acces a recovery so i can flash the lollipop xposed .zip (cause it only works by flashing the app is used to manage the modules) (and yess it was the correct one) after that i flashed 5.02 kernel and i got bootloop after fixing the rom by fresh installing it again i manualy pushed the contens of the .zip to system and guess what? BOOTLOOP :))) not to mention that root is partialy working, i mean root explorer mounts only when it wants so if there is a diferent solution to it ițm all ears :) [MENTION=987637]B1nny[/MENTION]
[Xperia Z2 General] light19940120:
Xperia Z2 Lollipop Update

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otGDMAWNN6g
[Xperia Z2 General] B1nny:
I think you understood me wrong. :)

I was only talking about flashing zip files using an older kernel and then returning to the Lollipop one. For example to flash SuperSU.

I haven't really looked into Xposed on Lollipop very well yet, so I didn't know it required you to flash it via recovery. It could also be that Xposed on Lollipop isn't supported on Sony stock roms yet, just like on Samsung stock roms. (this was the case as well back in the 4.4.x days iirc)

Also, when manually pushing files to your system, make sure to set the correct permissions. (!!) You could look at the updater-script located in the zip file to find out which files need which permissions set to them.

Regarding root explorer, so far I haven't had any problems with either root explorer or Titanium Backup, maybe I'll run into them later though.
[Xperia Z2 General] kersey:
When creating your own .ftf file do you still need to exclude the 2 .ta files...never really found out why and what they do???

Sent from my Xperia Z2
[Xperia Z2 General] joeliomason:
There is no close all button in the multitasking menu...
[Xperia Z2 General] Bn Waheed:
installed using flashtool .. first boot takes a lot of time and the phone is heating :D a good start
[Xperia Z2 General] minikoong:
me too :/
[Xperia Z2 General] juanmaasecas:
2 hrs SOT and 80% battery left. Really good! No stamina, no Greenify, everything stock.
[Xperia Z2 General] ghostkill:
Hi, if you enable lock pattern, then smart unlock (using your SmartBand or SmartWatch) will be available in the lockscreen settings.
[Xperia Z2 General] edge3uk:
I have the same issue with the smartband.... I cant even select none as an unlock. It's greyed out,and says "disabled by administrator, encryption policy or credential storage... Could this mean we need to enable lollipops encryption?
[Xperia Z2 General] PRO>KOMP.<:
Where is button to kill all tasks?
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
Nice difference in the night shot!

Well I still test my camera...

In some cases the improvement is quite big.
[Xperia Z2 General] effective:
Can u guys compare the camera detail between 21mp and 16mp because when i did tests today (on 726.) i saw that on 16mp is abit better (on cloudy / sunny conditions) manual mode.
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
This photo shows to me most the improvements in iso performance. This is a very lowlight night photo at iso 800 selected by auto iso setting.

The old firmware would have produced a noisy mess here but I think the new firmware did an admirable job. Don't think there are many other smartphone cameras that would do better here out there!
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
The photos on new firmware have more contrast. Probably due the changes in metering and dynamic range. One thing I'm happy to see gone is the milky haze like effect from sunlight that affected the photos since 4.4.4. Examples below

Old firmware

New firmware

Old firmware transformer 200% crop

New firmware transformer 200% crop

Old firmware stones 200% crop

New firmware stones 200% crop

The greater contrast and clarity of the new firmware gives the impression of greater sharpness but it's actually a bit less sharp. Notice the leaves in the stones crop.
[Xperia Z2 General] zodiac100:
I'm using .28 firmware now but will test that out later. I somehow doubt that would be the case though.
[Xperia Z2 General] plsdunbiteme:
I have the same problem too. Sound from Youtube and FB video is extremely low when played through phone speakers, even when volume is maxed out. Really annoying as phone is now unusable in that regard.

Sound from the walkman app still seems ok though.

Typical Sony - always breaking some function or other with the updates and causing annoyance. They really need more attention to detail
[Xperia Z2 General] lee480:
It's typical for Samsung the rest too.
[Xperia Z2 General] Plain Water:
Battery life not as good as before
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
No? For me it's the same as before....
[Xperia Z2 General] beni8978:
For me,the battery is better on .28 than .726
[Xperia Z2 General] Sensination:
Just thought you guys might find it useful to know that there is an app that can disable Xperia's LED when charging (not completely disable but dimm it so it's barely visible actually). Without it it's really annoying to have the whole room lit up especially if you're using a dock by your bed.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.deck36.fyled

Make sure to read Kevin's comment on Google Play to make it work on Lollipop [emoji4]
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
Well then is it simple: you did not a clean install then in that case !
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
Of course I didn't, it's nonsense.
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
Well stop complaining then if your battery drains or you have any other issues !
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
Huh?? Looks like understanding english is problematic for you.

Or you probably took me as somebody else.

I was not complaining.

BTW, these days Android upgrades are quite seamless
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
Well probarly i mean anothet guy then sorry and the latest update fw .28 is very good in my feelings in that case :)
[Xperia Z2 General] Plain Water:
Battery is horrible on lollipop. I usually get around 2 days of moderate usage on 4.4.2. Ever since the update to 4.4.4, the battery has been worse, occasional hangs, obvious stutter when scrolling through screens and low frame rate for games such as goat simulator
[Xperia Z2 General] rjkmadison:
As much as I hate to suggest this, if you haven't done a factory reset, do it. I have a Z1c that was pretty good after the LP update, but worse battery and some hiccups. I did a full reset and it is running faster, smoother, and at least as good on battery life as KK.
[Xperia Z2 General] Plain Water:
Thanks for the advice. Will certainly try it out

---------- Post added at 03:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:01 PM ----------

But why doesn't the Xperia z2 has the function to restore all apps and stuff automatically like stock android?
[Xperia Z2 General] sfkaudi:
There is
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
So strange. My Z2 is getting a bit better with each update.

And I never do a factory reset. It's such a painful waste of time...
[Xperia Z2 General] effective:
Actually i didn't lost a thing.And everything was quite fast.Copied the internal storage folders.Installed the new fware,the apps started to install themself,and ive put the internal folders again in the int.storage(only those ive got imp pics/files in it).Everything is fine and good.You should try it if you xperience some problems ^^ Its healthy for the phone.
[Xperia Z2 General] AlAneed:
Does anyone have a problem with the screen goes off when calling someone and can't easily wake the screen up to end the call or play whatever on phone while calling?
[Xperia Z2 General] dkionline:
Found a bug, cant import contacts from SD.
[Xperia Z2 General] the_crevis:
Anyone else have the problem I am having where system wide video playback and recording randomly fails and only a reboot fixes it? I have tried flashing a new FTF twice and the problem is still there. On the very latest .28 but this problem occurred on all lollipop versions.
[Xperia Z2 General] _mysiak_:
Same problem, same workaround, no solution :confused:
[Xperia Z2 General] LAKAME_MAN:
There's now five of us in total. Still no fix from Sony, or any workaround. This is frustrating :|
[Xperia Z2 General] Plain Water:
I meant it as in like the nexus devices can choose which date you wanna restore back to
[Xperia Z2 General] effective:
+1 for the widescreen video playback bug. :/ its outbugging itself after a minute or 2 but.. ew.. 726 firmware.
[Xperia Z2 General] xuhaib:
Clean Install is always better... Specially in case of battery drainage issue
[Xperia Z2 General] tOrNadO™:
I don't have any issue since 4.4.2 till 28 fw's on my phone.. I always clan flash.. No problems with wide-screen video playback...
[Xperia Z2 General] turulojko:
I got few bugs after updating to stock 5.0.2.

'Invalid card' and no mobile signal, once in 2-3 days. After rebooting the phone everything is fine for 2-3 days.

Sometimes on the lockscreen I got some fade-in effect with all colors washed out.

After updating to .28 the same bugs still exists.

Anyone have some of this bugs?

Solution?
[Xperia Z2 General] Private Snowball:
I am currently on .28 and i have the strange bug, that after a few hours I'm not able to play YouTube or any Videos from Facebook. After a reboot, the problem is fixed for the next few hours. Did a clean install with root.

Oh and today i found a weird thing. When i use the headset from my old Galaxy s3, every 5 seconds an app (i think this is an intended feature from Sony) pops up, asking me to configure the buttons. When configured, the app pops up over and over...
[Xperia Z2 General] tvdang7:
I had the color washing out problems too. Was on .740 now .28 still there. d6503
[Xperia Z2 General] ImS0Raw:
Could anyone tell me how to install xposed and make it on my current installtion of the .28 firmware? (I'm rooted and locked bootloader)
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
Clean rom withput any mods bro [MENTION=3137011]xPlayGunZ[/MENTION] ?

So yes then flash latest Xposed-Arm.zip then reboot (dalvik and cache wiped automatic) then install XposedInstaller.apk, press soft reboot and done, you need to be sure to install it on a clean rom otherwise you have a bootloop what i had, so i did it to on a clean one and all good :)
[Xperia Z2 General] dkionline:
Someone get the camera not available after deodexing?

2nd, Chrome doesn't showed in playstore.
[Xperia Z2 General] Ningyou Higeki:
Do you feel that the power consumption and heating of Z2 have increased on Lollipop? Is this a widespread problem?
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
So far no battery issues. No video playback issues either.

---------- Post added at 03:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:54 PM ----------

Never had one.
[Xperia Z2 General] your_login:
Could someboday make a comment on how the video camera works? how is the re-focusing issue behaving while recording a video, any changes there?
[Xperia Z2 General] Lasantha:
I get wifi disabled on setting it dossent auto connect.I have to manually connect.when i got to work or back at home.on wifi setting it shows wifi name and below"wifi disabled" truly annoying.ant fix?
[Xperia Z2 General] Super Prince:
Try this, go to developer settings and untick "Use Nuplayer (Experimental)" Option and reboot
[Xperia Z2 General] BanziBaby:
Thankfully the in call screen no longer looks all messed up after changing the DPI to a lower value but the Sony home launcher still looks a bit messed up when DPI is lowered.
[Xperia Z2 General] _mysiak_:
Tried it few times, no change, still got error message in video recorder and HW playback after few hours (anything between 2 to 60 after reboot).
[Xperia Z2 General] the_crevis:
Same here I'm afraid
[Xperia Z2 General] ottomanhero:
What can you guys tell me about sound loudness? I see some people are complaining about low sound compared to kitkat, how bad is it?

Are there any gamebreaking issues that would make me regret updating to lollipop?

It's probably that your headset is "pressing the buttons" on its own.Rather buttons stuck perhaps? I'm using the same s3 headset on my phone on kitkat, if you have tried to use it before lollipop update and if it's broken just now, could be a ROM issue.
[Xperia Z2 General] Private Snowball:
Thanks for your idea. I will test if it's a damaged Button problem or not.
[Xperia Z2 General] KrisPerry:
When a receive or make a call the contact photos for some contacts aren't fullscreen, just a circle on the bottom left. Has anyone else noticed this?
[Xperia Z2 General] linuxilakis:
It's low res pictures.maybe synchronized from your Google account..try put from your album ...and you are going to see the

difference..
[Xperia Z2 General] KrisPerry:
No hasn't made a difference
[Xperia Z2 General] knoxploration:
Yep, still have this bug.
[Xperia Z2 General] ottomanhero:
Guys please, this is important for me
[Xperia Z2 General] tOrNadO™:
Sound is same as in kitkat and no changes. Make a fresh install, that would clear out half issues mentioned all over XDA in this device section. Plus Lollipop has more benefits than drawbacks.. ;)
[Xperia Z2 General] ottomanhero:
It was though confirmed by sony support team that sound enhancements (xloud, equalizer, clearaudio, normalizer) are no longer system wide and only work for stock music app, stock movie player and a few google play apps that are integrated to make use of those enhancements.

That can't be just a dirty install problem, just wanted to know how worse it is but seeing you can't even find the difference, thanks :)
[Xperia Z2 General] tOrNadO™:
My guess would be they included those stuff from xloud, clear phase, etc integrated into the music libs or they must have bettered the DSEE HX so that we won't be needing Xloud and others.. Still music quality is same as in KK.. I wouldn't bother much coz i didn't find any loss in the quality so far..
[Xperia Z2 General] sensei_sai:
I noticed this either... is there something to do?

I made a clean install, may be I should redo it...
[Xperia Z2 General] _mysiak_:
My power consumption is between 0.5-2% in standby, with data/wifi always on. No "clean install", just upgraded system from KK to LP.
[Xperia Z2 General] Ningyou Higeki:
It's useless for me. I made a clean install of an ftf. It made no difference.
[Xperia Z2 General] sensei_sai:
OK... So we have to deal this?
[Xperia Z2 General] NetSkill:
I got also heating issues on. 28 fw i tryed factory reset, fresh install but only flashing back to kitkat helps :(
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
No heating problems here on latest FW .28

What you all doing woth your phone i wonder.

Using the whole day 4K video ? -__-"
[Xperia Z2 General] tvdang7:
Any one have internet die when on a phone call and it returns after hanging up? On .28
[Xperia Z2 General] ottomanhero:
DSEE HX wasn't a setting global in kitkat anyway, if you ever went settings > sound in kitkat you wouldn't find the toggle for DSEE HX but when you would launch walkman or "movies" then go to settings > sound enhancements, it would be there.

no sound enhancement is working globally now, not xloud not equalizer or clear phase.I'm on lollipop and I can notice a small difference in loudness comparing stock music/movie players to 3rd party apps'

Will do further testing
[Xperia Z2 General] Super Prince:
but this problem is not from sony. This is new in Lollipop that no global equalizer only you can choose the equalizer you want to use from the music app itself to work with it. The problem is most of music apps do not have that option. check sonyblog for more information.
[Xperia Z2 General] shehabskull:
Hi I am new user for z2 :3 I was using z.. Of course it is a high jump for me and z2 is Damn awesome but why the sound becomes very low when I make it in the middle? :|
[Xperia Z2 General] doministry:
TIP:

If you have a problem with deleting sms threads because it takes ages (like on my phone)

just go inside the thread and delete smses from there (select all and delete).

That's short!
[Xperia Z2 General] Pandemic:
Welcome to the z2 family bro [MENTION=5415557]shehabskull[/MENTION]

Why you didn't pm me about that or on fb ? [emoji14]

Well about the sound, you can flash a soundmod like i did :)