[Philips, Sony, TCL Android TV] jFalner:
Comments: Firmware Update 6.6520

Finally got brave and updated to 6.6520 on my XBR-49X700D. From the factory firmware, I had to update once to the most up-to-date Android 7.0 Nougat revision, then wait for about an hour until it recognized another update was available. That second update took me to Android 8.0 Oreo.

Some comments for anyone else debating whether to jump to Oreo:

• Sideloading is back! This was my greatest worry, and why I've remained on factory firmware since buying my television. Two or three levels up on Android 7, Sony disabled sideloading. The Bravia is not the most powerful Android device, but it can handle Kodi, Mozilla Firefox, and even Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol. While Kodi is now available on Android TV through Google Play, Firefox and RDP are not and must be sideloaded. Ditto for my favorite FTP server, which makes accessing files on the Bravia much more convenient. All are installed and working nicely!

• The volume control is now super speedy. No more slow change time or hesitation—you can go from 100% volume to 0% in a fraction of the time.

• The Bravia does indeed seem to be handling storage management better. On the factory firmware, the Bravia sometimes "forgets" there is a flash storage device attached, and a reboot is necessary for it to see the device again. On one of the later Android 7 firmwares, it would completely drop the device, requiring it to be reformatted for the television (ugh!). So far, it seems to be behaving well, although applications moved to flash storage do still disappear and reappear when coming out of standby.

• With factory firmware, the television would occasionally display a continuous red indicator light. I've never determined what caused that, and while it was somewhat rare (once every five or six months), it usually required unplugging the television for fifteen seconds. The red light has been coming on a lot since updating to 6.6520, but at least power cycling is no longer required. I can press the power button on the remote, which causes the light to turn white, stay on for about twenty seconds, then go dark. After a few seconds, I can press the power button again, and it comes on as if I just rebooted it.

• The new home screen design is much more efficient, albeit somewhat boring (the background is now completely black). You have the option to turn off a lot of what cluttered up the old screen, but the Sony Shelf (now listed as a row called Featured) resurfaces at odd moments even after being removed. It's possible disabling a service in the Apps might stop that, but haven't experimented there yet. Sideloaded apps still can't be added to the home screen.

• To my surprise, all my installed apps and settings were retained. I was prepared to laboriously reinstall and reconfigure everything, but it was all still there. That was a relief!

• The Wi-Fi in this firmware is a bit flaky. It now alerts you with a pop-up message when it thinks that it has lost a Wi-Fi connection. I've seen a few of these messages already at times when my network was working just fine (as verified by other Wi-Fi devices), but they seem to be bogus. I've seen them while streaming video, and there was no interruption to playback.

• Google Assistant has replaced the old Google Search, but you'll need a voice remote to use it. My factory remote has no voice capability, and the Sony Video & TV SideView app no longer relays voice commands to the television. So this feature is worthless to me…

One of the newest big features is picture-in-picture, which I've yet to try. Most else is bugfixes and performance enhancements. But so far, it's a worthwhile upgrade. I still don't know if you can revert to the factory firmware (Android 7) after this update, but thankfully, it doesn't appear I'll need to. :)