K800 Firmware Overview
Each firmware revision listed below contains the fixes listed against that revision plus the fixes of all the firmwares below that entry.
R1JC002
- Released on Wotan on 29/1/07
Improvements
- Updated Java engine
Bug fixes
- Video preview no longer crashes the phone
Software versions:
EROM: R3A016
LCD: 200610121
Camera: 2.5
Videocall camera: 2.3
Content: PA29
Java: 7.3
Text: BT
R1GB001
- Released in SE Service Centres around 15/12/06
- Released on Wotan on 30/12/06
- Released on SEUS 3/1/07 (Some regions only). Note EROM CID changed to 51 through SEUS.
Improvements
- Updated Video folder - video thumbnails now play when they are hovered over.
- Highlighted menu item animation is now supported.
Bug fixes
- Thick black line flashes on screen at the start and end of video playback when playing video in Vertical mode through the File Manager now fixed.
- Selecting More / Information on the Applications and Games folders no longer returns 0KB used and 0 files.
New Bugs
User Interface
- Video preview can crash the phone if the video is encoded as high quality MP4. Note that video preview cannot be turned off, although you can view the folder as a list to avoid the issue.
- Video preview can introduce a lag if the video is encoded in excessively high quality.
Intermittant / Non-working functionality
- Games and applications installed on memory stick from before the update will not work after the upgrade. Note that games and applications installed into phone memory will still function correctly.
Software versions:
EROM: R2A016 / R3A016
LCD: 200610121
Camera: 2.5
Videocall camera: 2.3
Content: PA24
Java: 7.2
Text: BJ
R1EJ001
- Released by Wotan Server 10/10/06
- Asian Pacific languages (Chinese simplified, Indonesian, Malay, Philippine-Tagalog, Vietnamese)
Software versions:
EROM: R3A016
LCD: 200608251
Camera: 2.5
Videocall camera: 2.3
Content: PA24
Java: 7.1
Text: BA
Update Service: CRH1069179 R3B019 2006-06-30 12:43
R1EG001
- Released by Wotan Server 10/10/06
- European & African languages (English, French, German, Sesotho, Turkish, Zulu)
R1ED001
- Released by Wotan Server 6/9/06
- Available on SEUS from 5/10/06 (EROM is currently not upgraded)
Performance
- JBenchmark HD - ST: 40047, TT: 27274 , Gaming : 105
- JBenchmark 3D LQ: 332
- JBenchmark 3D HQ: 182
- JBenchmark 2: 1230
- JBenchmark 1: 7670
Improvements
- PC-based PictBridge support added
- Significantly rewritten MMS editor
- Ability to set an Application as a Wallpaper now available (application needs to be specifically coded for use as wallpaper)
- Improved battery life
- SEUS update only: You must now press the Internet key for a couple of seconds to bring up the browser. This is to prevent accidental connection to the Internet.
- Pressing a key when the phone is locked will no longer brighten the screen to full brightness for a second before reverting to half brightness.
- Locking or powering down the phone instantly turns off the display rather than fading to black as in previous firmwares.
- Enhanced reliability of focusing the camera.
- Less noise when taking pictures in dark environments.
- Slightly more natural colours in photos.
- Notably improved picture save time.
- Improved Bluetooth relibaility with GPSes and Handsfree kits
- Joystick no longer wakes the phone from Standby mode
- Large Clock displays above the date in am/pm mode
- Bookmarks listed directly in the Internet section of the task menu rather than in a Bookmarks submenu
- Dialog pop up menu times have lengthened prevent accidental selection.
- Updated internet browsing icon
- Battery meter now present in File Transfer mode
- Improved contrast in the progress bar of the Media player (white rather than grey background to the progress bar)
- The softkey text in the browser is now outlined rather than in relief, making the text easier to read on a white background.
- The Blog background colour has been changed from yellow to transparent to improve contrast.
- The Video player menu now loads the whole list of videos before it opens (as opposed to displaying instantly and then updating as the videos were loaded).
- Deleting an Artist in Media Player no longer causes it to get stuck in Yes/No selections.
- The screen refresh rate when using the camera is improved.
- Improved language customisation for some far east languages.
- Updated EROM. This is primarily to prevent Power On problems.
Bug fixes
- Significant A2DP fixes (e.g. HBH-DS970) - ID tags now present on the handsfree screen, stability fixes, pressing Pause no longer leaves play icon displayed, audio better synced with video, graphic equalizer and phone volume keys now affect headset, audio automatically transferred to headset when playing music.
- WMA tracks are now listed correctly by artists and title
- Green line on screen during video recording.
- Occasional crash when listening to the radio / using Media Player when receiving an incomming call.
- 'White Screen Of Death' problems fixed
- Inability to power phone on fixed via EROM update.
- Alarms occasionally fail to go off
- Phone automatically answers with PHF (Portable Hands Free)
- Email fixes
- Opera Mini does not display the 'connect to the internet' dialog. Performing a Resume of Opera through the activity menu will display the dialog and allow the user to select 'Yes'.
- The RSS icon always appears after rebooting the phone until the user enters the Messaging / RSS Reader menu.
- Plugging in headphones whilst watching a movie causes the screen to go into standby mode. Pausing the movie before plugging them in bypasses the problem.
- Intermittant radio background noise (unrelated to the radio station) can occur.
- Chinese firmware only - Changing the settings to display a large clock (Settings / Display / Clock Size / Large) causes an extremely small clock to be displayed when using a 24 hour clock. The clock displays correctly when using the 12 hour am/pm time format.
- Firmware now recognises DRM protected theme files (with dm extensions)
- Java applications can now switch between Aa, A and a rather than just A and a.
New Bugs
User Interface
- Thick black line flashes on screen at the start and end of video playback when playing video in Vertical mode through the File Manager
- Some phones experience occasional menu title corruption.
- On some phones, selecting More / Information on the Applications and Games folders returns 0KB used and 0 files.
- On some phones, selecting More / Delete from list on a task reminder in the New Events list fails to delete the event.
- If you have automatic phone lock enabled the phone will display an 'enter phone lock pin' prompt on booting. If you have not changed the SIM this will cancel itself without prompting and the phone will continue to boot
Functionality changes
- Jangler and Alien Noise MP3s do not play on this firmware due to incorrect encoding. These files did play under previous firmwares.
- If a phone lock code is present a "You dont need to place any codes into the phone if you havnt swapped sim cards over" message after you enter a PIN. This is a phone self check.
Software versions:
EROM: R3A016
LCD: 200608251
Camera: 2.5
Videocall camera: 2.3
Content: PA24
Java: 7.1
Text: BA
Update Service: CRH1069179 R3B015 2006-04-26 08:20
R1CF001
- T-Mobile specific release.
- Generic version released on Wotan Server 8/8/06.
- Background noise in the radio fixed.
R1CE001
- Vodafone specific release.
R1CD001
- 3 UK specific release.
R1CC002
- Test firmware
R1CB001
- First release
Performance
- JBenchmark 3D LQ: 324
- JBenchmark 3D HQ: 182
- JBenchmark 2: 1018
- JBenchmark 1: 5388
Software versions:
EROM: R3A016
LCD: 200604051
Camera: 2.4
Videocall camera: 2.3
Content: PA24
Java: 7.1
Text: AG
Update Service: CRH1069179 R3B015 2006-04-26 08:20
Bugs
User Interface
- Occasional screen corruption, most notably a line on the screen during video recording, but also slight corruption when navigating through menus.
- Opera Mini does not display the 'connect to the internet' dialog. Performing a Resume of Opera through the activity menu will display the dialog and allow the user to select 'Yes'.
- The Call Log can sometimes stop working. Deleting the entries in the call log has been known to restore it's functionality.
- Plugging in headphones whilst watching a movie causes the screen to go into standby mode. Pausing the movie before plugging them in bypasses the problem.
- Chinese firmware only - Changing the settings to display a large clock (Settings / Display / Clock Size / Large) causes an extremely small clock to be displayed when using a 24 hour clock. The clock displays correctly when using the 12 hour am/pm time format.
- Whilst in the Main Menu, if you select a menu item with the keypad (e.g. 7 for the file manager) and then hit Back to go back to the Main Menu, the selected menu item will be highlighted but the title will be incorrect (it will display the name of the previous menu item selected)
- The text searching feature in the File Manager does not work. This menu should really use 1-9 to select a specific menu item rather than doing a rather pointless text search on the 9 menu items.
- Many 'Press Ok' dialog boxes throughout the phone are displayed for such a short period of time that their inclusion leads to the user selecting an unwanted menu option rather than selecting Ok. Such dialogs should be removed.
- Selecting 'Settings / Calls / Manage Calls / Accept Calls / Only from list' only blocks those calls whose number is present in the phonebook. All unknown numbers are automatically accepted.
- The total call time in the Service Menu / Service Tests / Total Call Time does not match the time in Settings / Calls / Time & cost / Call timers.
- Previewing MMSes with Video often fails to play the audio.
- Changing between full-screen and Landscape while watching a paused video resets the timer to 00:00 until the video is unpaused.
- The RSS icon always appears after rebooting the phone until the user enters the Messaging / RSS Reader menu.
Intermittant / Non-working functionality
- Rapidly entering text into the phone (via T9 or multitap) can result in lost characters / unread keypresses.
- Cannot send emails to some SMTP servers which don't require validation (it appears that the email client tries to send blank login records to the server)
- Alarms occasionally fail to go off
- Key sounds, if enabled, can fail after a period of time (possibly after an alarm has gone off)
- Occasional temporary freezes during phone usage.
- Intermittant radio background noise (unrelated to the radio station) can occur. This can be fixed by turning the radio off and then on again.
- Occasional loss of shortcuts on phone restart.
- Very occasional crashes ('White Screen Of Death')
- Occasional crash when listening to the radio / using Media Player when receiving an incomming call.
- Very occasional file corruption (loss of access to the Games and Application folders).
K790 Firmware
R1EG001
- Equivalent to R1ED001
R1CC003
- First release. Equivalent to R1CB001
Accessing Firmware Information
To find out which firmware revision your phone currently has installed, select Menu > Settings > General > Update service > Software version. For more detailed software versioning information, perform the following:
>*<<*<*
Where < and > represents pushing the joystick left and right respectively.
Sony Ericsson Update Service
The firmware of the K800/K790 can be upgraded either over the air by selecting Settings / Update Service / Search for update or via the more traditional (and potentially cheaper) method of the Sony Ericsson Update Service. In order to use SEUS you will need to have internet access (preferably Broadband) and attach your phone to your PC via the supplied USB cable.
If you run into problems, you may wish to download and install Sun's Java Runtime Environment separately.
If the firmware update fails part way through, retry the SEUS. If the update consistently fails you will need to perform a Master Reset on your phone. It is likely that you will be required to perform a Reset All - a settings reset is unlikely to do the job. It is recommended to use a tool such as MyPhoneExplorer to create a backup of the data on your phone before performing a Master Reset. Note that you will still lose any games, themes or ringtones present in your phone's memory.
SEUS will currently install the following firmware revisions for UK phone brands:
K800
Unbranded UK (CDA102511/2) - R1GB001
O2 UK (CDA102511/41) - R1ED001
Vodafone UK (CDA102511/15) - R1ED001
Orange UK (CDA102511/47) - R1CB001
3 UK (CDA102511/69) - R1EJ001
T-Mobile (CDA102511/12) - R1CF001
Third Party Update Services
Third party firmware updates are available from Wotan Server. The use of third party solutions will theoretically void your warranty (although in practice the phone vendor is unlikely to notice) so should only be used in preference to SEUS for debranding purposes or updating a problematic phone locked out of SEUS by the service provider.
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