The Sony Xperia TX may be the mobile weapon of choice of secret agent par excellence James Bond but the handset still needs software updates to make it even more capable than it already is. And with that, Sony obliges users of the handset by starting the rollout of the Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich to the handset today.
With this update, Mr. Bond’s Sony Xperia TX will finally get the Screen Mirroring functionality. This is essentially the Miracast sharing over Wi-Fi feature – a feature that we remember from Android 4.2 and the LG Nexus 4. With this in play, a user of the Sony Xperia TX can wirelessly mirror the display of the handset on a Miracast-compatible display over a Wi-Fi connection.
In addition to that, the Android 4.0.4 update also brings to the Sony Xperia TX enhancements to the battery life of the handset by giving the handset an Extended Standby Mode. With this in play, the standby time of the handset gets increased by up to 4 times. What happens is when the display of the handset has been in sleep mode for a couple of minutes, data traffic along with Wi-Fi connectivity on the Sony Xperia TX becomes disabled. In addition to that, most applications will also become inactive. Though this might be the case, the Sony Xperia TX’s core functions of the handset such as calling and messaging will still work as normal but once wake the handset from Sleep mode, all of its functions will return to normal.
However, the goodies and treats that the update brings to the Sony Xperia TX do not end there. The update also brings improvements to the media apps of the handset. For example, the interface of the Movies app got improvements where a user can now use a small viewing window in controlling what is being shown. In addition to that, the interface of the Walkman app also got enhanced where it changes color to match the album art of the currently playing song. The Album app also got improvements and now makes use of the handset’s Bravia engine to have the sharpness, contrast and depth of its photos and videos improved.
As for the Sony Xperia TX, the handset reached official status when it was announced back in August. However, the handset only managed to hit the shelves of AT&T last month. The handset as mentioned earlier already runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich but an upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is already planned for the device. The circuitry of the handset is built around its QualComm MSM8260A SnapDragon S3 chipset and this SoC brings a dual-core Krait processor clocked at 1.5 GHz and a full gigabyte of RAM to the Sony Xperia TX. The handset comes with 16GB of onboard storage but a microSD card in its chassis enables memory expansion on the handset. Display-wise, the Sony Xperia TX packs a 4.55-inch TFT panel with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels while its camera department includes a rear 13MP shooter and a front 1.3MP snapper, both of which are capable of video recording at 1080p and 720p respectively.
