Update Sony Xperia with Ice Cream Sandwich Beta Rom – How to

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Now this is worth paying attention. After promising the official ICS update for all Xperia line up smartphones, Sony is providing you a Beta Rom for Xperia Arc, Xperia Neo and Xperia Ray. All of the three smartphones have official ice cream sandwich beta Rom, and anybody can install it and take a most out of it.As compared to the previous ICS alpha, Sony has now updated ‘User Interface’, ‘Lockscreen and Face Unlock’ , ‘Connectivity turned on’, ‘email client’ and ‘Quick Dial’.Some of the GMS Apps such as Gmail, Google Maps and Face Unlock and Bluetooth & Wi-Fi are not included in this beta release because they are still waiting for the certification and type approval to be finalised.

Warnings:-

As advised by Sony people that even the most basic functions are working you should only download it when you are a ‘advanced developer’. The beta rom is no the final software and it has not been tested finally and may have contain bugs.

You cannot use this rom on original Xperia™ arc or Xperia™ neo, as they have different partition layouts and instead use Xperia™ arc S, Xperia™ neo V or Xperia™ ray, running the latest Xperia™ software release which is 4.0.2.A.0.42.

Steps to update Sony Xperia Arc, Neo and Ray with ICS Beta Rom:-

1. To begin you have to make sure that your device is running on the latest software released by Sony which is build 4.0.2.A.0.42, without it you will not be able to run beta rom on your device.
2. Secondly you have to go to the unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com , read and agree all the legal and warranty conditions and unlock the bootloader to install this beta rom on your xperia device.
3. Download the Ice Cream Sandwich beta ROM for Xperia™ arc S, the Ice Cream Sandwich beta ROM for Xperia™ neo V or the Ice Cream Sandwich beta ROM for Xperia™ ray depending on your phone model.
4. Now when you have installed the beta rom suitable to your device you have to extract the zip file on your android fastboot directory. For example if you are a Sony arc user,  \android-sdk\fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_beta.
5. Now open command prompt and go to fastboot directory.
6. Flash the beta Rom’s for your xperia device one at a time using fastboot. You can use the below given commands and replace the folder name if you are a xperia Neo or a Xperia Ray owner:-
   •  fastboot flash boot ..\Fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_beta\boot.img
   •  fastboot flash userdata ..\Fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_beta\userdata.img
   •  fastboot flash system ..\Fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_beta\system.img
7. After you have flash the suitable file to your xperia device, please reboot your device

For more information and queries regarding this ICS beta ROM or Xperia line up , head over to Sony Official Blog.