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Few questions about the z3

hey guys,
I'm interested in this nice phone and got a few questions if you can answer them i'll be thankful :good:
1- any known problem i should consider before buying?
2- unlocking the bootloader will cause problem to the camera or anything else?
3- how much time will take to charge z3 0 to 100%?
4- is noise cancelling headphone for the z2/z3 got great noise cancellation that works great especially in airplanes and long trips?
i'm waiting for ur answers guys :victory:

wf-17 said:
hey guys,
I'm interested in this nice phone and got a few questions if you can answer them i'll be thankful :good:
1- any known problem i should consider before buying?
2- unlocking the bootloader will cause problem to the camera or anything else?
3- how much time will take to charge z3 0 to 100%?
4- is noise cancelling headphone for the z2/z3 got great noise cancellation that works great especially in airplanes and long trips?
i'm waiting for ur answers guys :victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All of these questions have been answered countless times and a quick search would provide your answers. I'm reluctant to answer because I feel you are being a tad lazy but I'm too polite not to help and at least this will serve as a summary of these discussions:
1) There are no real problems though a few people (myself included) have had slight hardware faults. For me it was a flickering screen which was a loose connection and the phone was replaced quickly with no bother. Make sure you test it well on receiving it (use all the various functions and check they all work as expected). A few have suffered water damage because the unit wasn't properly sealed (it is supposed to be waterproof). This post explains how to test it's air-tight before submerging it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3/...fing-water-t2897886/post55896949#post55896949
2) Yes. Unlocking the bootloader wipes the 'TA partition' which hold DRM keys specific to your device. That will kill various functions such as Music/Video Unlimited and the Bravia engine display enhancements. Crucially though, it also disables the Sony-specific camera algorithms so, yes, it will degrade camera performance, especially in low light.
Hopefully, someone will soon find an exploit that allows root without unlocking the bootloader as that will mean we can backup the TA partition and restore it after a bootloader unlock, saving the DRM keys. Until that happens, it is strongly advised to leave the bootloader locked. Remember; the DRM keys are specific to each phone so if you lose yours, that is it, game over. You cannot replace them!
3) There are many varying reports but using the provided charger seems to take between 2.5 and 3 hours to completely charge. You can use quick chargers which bring that down to around 2.
4) The noise cancelling headphones (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HX9AJ5M/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1) are excellent. I have them. They work very well at killing background noises, particularly constant low frequencies like aeroplane engine noise. They are not included with the phone as they were in the Z2, instead you get some standard headphones but since the noise cancelling technology is in the phone, the MDR-NC31Ms are not expensive (see link above).

3Shirts said:
All of these questions have been answered countless times and a quick search would provide your answers. I'm reluctant to answer because I feel you are being a tad lazy but I'm too polite not to help and at least this will serve as a summary of these discussions:
1) There are no real problems though a few people (myself included) have had slight hardware faults. For me it was a flickering screen which was a loose connection and the phone was replaced quickly with no bother. Make sure you test it well on receiving it (use all the various functions and check they all work as expected). A few have suffered water damage because the unit wasn't properly sealed (it is supposed to be waterproof). This post explains how to test it's air-tight before submerging it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3/...fing-water-t2897886/post55896949#post55896949
2) Yes. Unlocking the bootloader wipes the 'TA partition' which hold DRM keys specific to your device. That will kill various functions such as Music/Video Unlimited and the Bravia engine display enhancements. Crucially though, it also disables the Sony-specific camera algorithms so, yes, it will degrade camera performance, especially in low light.
Hopefully, someone will soon find an exploit that allows root without unlocking the bootloader as that will mean we can backup the TA partition and restore it after a bootloader unlock, saving the DRM keys. Until that happens, it is strongly advised to leave the bootloader locked. Remember; the DRM keys are specific to each phone so if you lose yours, that is it, game over. You cannot replace them!
3) There are many varying reports but using the provided charger seems to take between 2.5 and 3 hours to completely charge. You can use quick chargers which bring that down to around 2.
4) The noise cancelling headphones (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HX9AJ5M/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1) are excellent. I have them. They work very well at killing background noises, particularly constant low frequencies like aeroplane engine noise. They are not included with the phone as they were in the Z2, instead you get some standard headphones but since the noise cancelling technology is in the phone, the MDR-NC31Ms are not expensive (see link above).
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Believe me that I spent a lot of time searching for the answers and almost got nothing ,but you answers are perfect and helpful so thanks buddy I appreciate the help and others may do too!
i'll get the phone today and hopefully i'll get the noise cancelling headphones.. so thanks again :good::good:

[Q] Considering unlocking my D6603 bootloader, could you please answer my questions?

Hey,
I'm considering unlocking the bootloader of my Xperia Z3 D6603. In the Service Menu, I can see Bootloader unlock allowed: Yes so I assume it'll work.
I'm aware of the camera low-light degradation issues but I've decided that it's not as much of a problem as I initially thought. I was reading this thread from the Z3 Compact forums (I assume everything there applies here), and I'm left with a few questions:
In that thread, some users claim that their audio (from headphones and speakers) sounds noticeably worse with the unlocked bootloader. Still, some users claim that there is no difference. Can anyone here tell me whether or not there is actually a difference in audio quality?
I know about all the low-light problems, but in Manual 20MP mode, are photos from the unlocked bootloader still comparable with photos from the locked bootloader?
I learned that PS4 Remote Play has been ported from the Z3 to other Android devices successfully from this thread in the Sony cross-platform forums. Would using the ported Remote Play from that thread allow PS4 Remote Play to work on an unlocked bootloader? (not too worried about this, just curious.)
I know I'm asking a lot, but I really love this device and I wouldn't want to lose any functionality when unlocking the bootloader. Thanks for your help!

1. For me the sound quality is the same.
2. I've unlocked my phone before I took any low light photos. Now it is not too bad.
3. I didn't get Remote Play to work. I've tried only one method to get it.

epic118 said:
Hey,
I'm considering unlocking the bootloader of my Xperia Z3 D6603. In the Service Menu, I can see Bootloader unlock allowed: Yes so I assume it'll work.
I'm aware of the camera low-light degradation issues but I've decided that it's not as much of a problem as I initially thought. I was reading this thread from the Z3 Compact forums (I assume everything there applies here), and I'm left with a few questions:
In that thread, some users claim that their audio (from headphones and speakers) sounds noticeably worse with the unlocked bootloader. Still, some users claim that there is no difference. Can anyone here tell me whether or not there is actually a difference in audio quality?
I know about all the low-light problems, but in Manual 20MP mode, are photos from the unlocked bootloader still comparable with photos from the locked bootloader?
I learned that PS4 Remote Play has been ported from the Z3 to other Android devices successfully from this thread in the Sony cross-platform forums. Would using the ported Remote Play from that thread allow PS4 Remote Play to work on an unlocked bootloader? (not too worried about this, just curious.)
I know I'm asking a lot, but I really love this device and I wouldn't want to lose any functionality when unlocking the bootloader. Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Z3 ia about to be delivered any time now, but I can tell you a bit about my Z1 Compact. I unlocked and rooted it as soon as I got it and never used the official rom. I'm looking at the 3000 pictures/videos I took with it and can see the noise is very similar to what we see on the threads comparing LB/UB pictures. So, knowing that the Z3 has better optics and image sensor than the Z1C, I imagine it'll be fine. I never take pictures in low light conditions because I know they'll suck no matter what.
I'll test the sound issue, but I can't test the PS4 thing because I don't have one.

Gaúcho comedor said:
My Z3 ia about to be delivered any time now, but I can tell you a bit about my Z1 Compact. I unlocked and rooted it as soon as I got it and never used the official rom. I'm looking at the 3000 pictures/videos I took with it and can see the noise is very similar to what we see on the threads comparing LB/UB pictures. So, knowing that the Z3 has better optics and image sensor than the Z1C, I imagine it'll be fine. I never take pictures in low light conditions because I know they'll suck no matter what.
I'll test the sound issue, but I can't test the PS4 thing because I don't have one.
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Click to collapse
Thanks so much!
Not too bothered about the PS4 thing. I've tried it with my PS4 and frankly, I don't think I'll be using it often, if at all. You've reassured me about the camera, so thanks about that. My only concern is the sound issue. I'd consider myself an audiophile of sorts, and so I don't think I'll be rooting until there's a way to backup the TA partition. But again, thanks so much for your help.

I dont want to lose warranty, can any one help?

guys I wanna unlock cuz a lot of roms and features are being released for my XZP but i dont wanna lose warranty,
I read backing up TA but its without drm( i get drm are responsible for screen and camera functions) but if I have TA backed up without DRM and I restored TA (still i wont have DRM) but will the TA get me back my warranty?
if i relock my bootloader even without TA backup - Restore, is my warranty back?
I live in Israel and here, workers in companies look for any excuse not to do any one favors, i already had a problem with the screen of the device and they fixed it, but now if i unlock, im afraid the problem may reoccur and they claim its due to unlocked bootloader...
so i need help here i want to unlock but i still want sony to fix natural failures without an excuse.
anyone?

Hey Man, unfortunately can i not tell how the Warranty is handled in Your Region. I can just suggest to Contact the SONY Support (They are there for You since You are a Customer, with and without locked Bootloader). They will reply asap if You write them a Message over the Homepage (Official Pages for Your Country). Otherwise can i recommend looking and asking in a Android Forum in Your Language. In Germany do we have some Forums where People have explained how the Warranty Works in Germany.
So here is it like said once before. Hardware Defects and Software Defects are 2 Different Things. While You loose on unlocking the Bootloader Your Software Warranty, is the Hardware Warranty still intact. That covers Defects, like broken Headphone Ports, broken USB Ports, failed Materials (Failing Water Resistance), failing Buttons, dark display Shadows / Failed Pixels etc. Not covered are fails like Bootloops, Soft Bricks (By flashing wrong Firmware Files), Overheating Issues (Yellow Screen shadows) / Melted Device and so on. The Thing is You need to register Your Device for the unlocking. So just relocking doesn't gives You the Warranty back since SONY knows that there is a Unlock Key for this Device.
Hope that helped a bit and that You will get You Answer from SONY directly to be on the safe Side! But to be honest, You can get a Original Display for around 150 Bucks and everything else is almost Failsafe. I owned around 50 Smartphones since 2010 and none of them Failed except for My Xperia Z3 which was a little Heating Head with the SD801 (Sold it for a XZ Ultra). Compared to that is the XZP a real Snowman. The 835 is Legendary Fast and stays always cool even on heavy Gaming (At least on Patched AOSP). Unlocking and flashing AOSP should really ensure that You don't get heat Problems at all... Again, i can really recommend it and i haven't waited a single minute to do it after getting the Device (It wasn't that Cheap for Me, but anyways).
Enough for now. Let Me know what You do! :fingers-crossed:

Just keep it in oem state by buying cases and sell the phone on eBay when you're done with it
I bought this phone new for 300 euros / 277 USD!

amakuramio said:
Just keep it in oem state by buying cases and sell the phone on eBay when you're done with it
I bought this phone new for 300 euros / 277 USD!
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Click to collapse
yah in terms of keeping the phone away from physical breaks is easy (its not even covered even with locked bootloader)
but my problem is the screen, once it got yellow spots due to over heat or some thing, I dont want the problem to come back and then they will claim its due to software modification (boot loader unlock).

madshark2009 said:
guys I wanna unlock cuz a lot of roms and features are being released for my XZP but i dont wanna lose warranty,
I read backing up TA but its without drm( i get drm are responsible for screen and camera functions) but if I have TA backed up without DRM and I restored TA (still i wont have DRM) but will the TA get me back my warranty?
if i relock my bootloader even without TA backup - Restore, is my warranty back?
I live in Israel and here, workers in companies look for any excuse not to do any one favors, i already had a problem with the screen of the device and they fixed it, but now if i unlock, im afraid the problem may reoccur and they claim its due to unlocked bootloader...
so i need help here i want to unlock but i still want sony to fix natural failures without an excuse.
anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately once you unlock the bootloader, that's it. You can't relock it. Plus, there's a message saying that this phone "may not be secure" when you turn it on. It's a trade when you unlock the phone to root.

How to decrypt 3A?

I'm trying to decrypt my 3A to get a little better performance. I would like to know anyone can provide a step by step instruction.
I understand that all I need may just be flashing a zip with a modified file in TWRP then reset the phone. Unfortunately, I'm not savvy enough for preparing that.
Any one can assist?
Thank you.

Me too.

Isn't encryption on Pixels hardware accelerated and therefore has zero impact on performance? At least this is what I have read about the more expensive Pixel 3.
I personally prioritize security over a small performance impact. Encryption provides great benefits in the case of loosing or reselling the phone - your data is safe from unwanted access.
It would be nice if someone could post actual benchmarks before and after disabling encryption so that others can see if it is actually worth it.

There's zero benefit from permanently decrypting on pixels

en2tri said:
Isn't encryption on Pixels hardware accelerated and therefore has zero impact on performance? At least this is what I have read about the more expensive Pixel 3.
I personally prioritize security over a small performance impact. Encryption provides great benefits in the case of loosing or reselling the phone - your data is safe from unwanted access.
It would be nice if someone could post actual benchmarks before and after disabling encryption so that others can see if it is actually worth it.
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Click to collapse
Hardware accelerated means you still need resource to compute the encryption process. No matter how good it is, it will charge extra computation and battery anyway. The only way encryption may help would be not to leak phone information when you lose your phone. It will not happen if you care your phone enough.
If someone can provide the decryption method, I can run the benchmark to support what I say above for sure~

It will not happen if you care your phone enough.
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Really, this is your excuse?
And as far as the battery consumption goes, I think this will be a similar discussion as the dark gray vs. black OLED consumption, which saves you no more than a few seconds on a full charge.

ashatter said:
No matter how good it is, it will charge extra computation and battery anyway. ~
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Click to collapse
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_3a_specs
https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/titan-m-makes-pixel-3-our-most-secure-phone-yet/
Everything is decrypted using the Titan M processor, not the SD670. So disabling encryption would not help increase performance. Battery doesn't take much of a hit either. Maybe a few minutes at best would be saved.

en2tri said:
Really, this is your excuse?
And as far as the battery consumption goes, I think this will be a similar discussion as the dark gray vs. black OLED consumption, which saves you no more than a few seconds on a full charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not an excuse. I only experience losing my phone for 1 time which was 14 years ago and the phone was found. Again, encrypting the phone takes extra step. Just not to do it if you could not bare the risk.
Personally, I would like to fight over the smallest trifles. It may just affect the performance and battery slightly and we can barely feel it, it is still hard for me to take it.

Uzephi said:
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_3a_specs
https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/titan-m-makes-pixel-3-our-most-secure-phone-yet/
Everything is decrypted using the Titan M processor, not the SD670. So disabling encryption would not help increase performance. Battery doesn't take much of a hit either. Maybe a few minutes at best would be saved.
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Click to collapse
Personally, I would like to fight over the smallest trifles. It may just affect the performance and battery slightly and we can barely feel it, it is still hard for me to take it.
Since you're responding, I would like to thank all contributors like you who make our phones work better for us. We appreciate it.

en2tri said:
I personally prioritize security over a small performance impact. Encryption provides great benefits in the case of loosing or reselling the phone - your data is safe from unwanted access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you unlock your phone? If so, your encryption is basically worthless.
Sure it might keep the casual user who finds a misplaced phone from getting information off of it. But anyone with even a slight interest in cracking the phone will be able to do it if it is unlocked. Please heed the boot warning on an unlocked phone states that an unlocked phone is insecure and that no sensitive information should be stored on it.

sic0048 said:
Do you unlock your phone? If so, your encryption is basically worthless.
Sure it might keep the casual user who finds a misplaced phone from getting information off of it. But anyone with even a slight interest in cracking the phone will be able to do it if it is unlocked. Please heed the boot warning on an unlocked phone states that an unlocked phone is insecure and that no sensitive information should be stored on it.
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My phone locks after the screen turns off - either manually via power button or after 1 minute of idling. I can also lock / wipe it remotely, if needed.
I should also point out that wiping an un-encrypted device (either manual wipe or remote wipe) is totally ineffective and the "deleted" data can be very easily recovered.
In the end, it is your device with your data - do what you want with it. But disabling encryption offers zero performance improvement and negligible battery improvement.

ashatter said:
Hardware accelerated means you still need resource to compute the encryption process. No matter how good it is, it will charge extra computation and battery anyway. The only way encryption may help would be not to leak phone information when you lose your phone. It will not happen if you care your phone enough.
If someone can provide the decryption method, I can run the benchmark to support what I say above for sure~
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Click to collapse
the same as on any other phone unlock your bootloader install custom recovery format userdata and internal storage and flash a kernel that does not force encryption

billycar11 said:
the same as on any other phone unlock your bootloader install custom recovery format userdata and internal storage and flash a kernel that does not force encryption
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Click to collapse
I did that. It does not work. I did some research and it seems I have to edit a file to disable to force encryption.
see: https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-3-xl/how-to/decrypting-pixel-3-xl-t3867676

en2tri said:
My phone locks after the screen turns off - either manually via power button or after 1 minute of idling. I can also lock / wipe it remotely, if needed.
I should also point out that wiping an un-encrypted device (either manual wipe or remote wipe) is totally ineffective and the "deleted" data can be very easily recovered.
In the end, it is your device with your data - do what you want with it. But disabling encryption offers zero performance improvement and negligible battery improvement.
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Click to collapse
Sorry, when I said "unlock your phone", I really meant bootloader unlock. I think you took it as a screen unlock. The way I wrote my comment, I totally understand the confusion.
If you bootloader unlock your phone (which many of us on this forum do to gain root), then the fact that your phone is encrypted is basically worthless. Now personally I would never worry about trying to permanently decrypt my phone even though I do bootloader unlock it, but I can understand why someone might want to.

Sorry, I misunderstood you before.
I am running an unmodified stock ROM and the bootloader was never unlocked.

Question Does unrooting and relocking bootloader effectively restore warranty?

Or can ASUS still tell if my phone has already been previously rooted? I come from Samsung phone where rooting the phone would permanently trip Knox as if there's some sort of hardware fuse. I'm wondering if something similar happens to ROG Phone as well.

Good question, I'm curious as well.
My guess is since the phone pings asus to unlock bootloader that they know on their end that its been tinkered with.

If you have used the official method they have record of your device id. The good news is they're not too hostile towards unlocked devices like some of the other brands - they know most of their customers are on the wild side

Asus releases an official unlock app, so the warning about voiding warranty is more intended toward covering issues you cause yourself. They usually still cover the internal hardware and provide support for the stock firmware. If flashing the phone back to stock fixes the issue, they may even help with that. At the end of the day, it's there so they have the option to deny claims.