If you have been a smartphone user for a while, you must have used a Nokia Symbian device. And if you have used a Symbian based phone, you must also be familiar with the good old tool for PC called NaviFirm. It was used to download the latest firmwares for the Nokia phones.
The easy availability of stock firmwares for any device might prove to be a lifesaver in specific situations. Google and Motorola offerย a dedicated repository of stock firmwares for end-users. LG users can download the latest firmware using LG Flash Tool. It is very easy to find firmwares for Samsung devices via certain unofficial sites. Sony used to provide firmwares to Xperia users but it has now ended support for SUS (Sony Update Service).
If you own a Sony Xperia phone or tablet and want to download the latest stock firmware for your device IaguCool from XDA developers has developedย a cool utility to make your day. His tool,ย XperiFirm is inspired by Nokia’s NaviFirm tool and can check the appropriate firmware for your Xperia device and download it for flashing manually using the Flashtool.
Please note that XperiFirm does not download the FTF file needed for flashing the device. It downloads the official file from Sony servers which can beย decrypted and bundled to FTF using Flashtool. You can do this by launching theย Flashtool and by clicking Tools >ย Bundles > Fileset decrypt option.Thenย navigate toย the folder with the downloaded firmware files and just follow the instructions to create your FTF. Thus XperiFirm is far better than Sony’s PC Companion because it letsย you can choose theย firmware of your choice without modifyingย build.prop on your device.
It’s really a great thing as you can now fix your phone that is caught into a bootloop, or unroots the device and restores it back to stock easily. The also lets you download the latest firmware for your device by disguising its baseband version or region/country. So, you do not need to wait till a software update reaches your country as you can get it as soon as it comes out from Sony.
XperiFirmย is really highly useful utility for the users of Sony and Sony-Ericsson Xperia devices. You can easily download the latest firmware for Xperia devices with XperiFirm but before you can really do that, it requires a few things to be met on the part of the users:
- Windows XP SP2 or greater installed on the computer
- Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0ย or above
- Sony Flashtool orย Java Runtime Environment installed on the PC.
Screenshots
Download XperiFirm
Thus, XperiFirm has come as a very handy tool for Sony smartphone and tablet users as it covers almost all devices from the OEM. If you need to download the official Sony firmware for your Xperia device, just head over to the XDA thread and grab the latest version of XperiFirm.
A Video Tutorial of XperiFirm Step by Step:
http://youtu.be/A-RrfZZZ6DI