How To Debrand Your Sony Xperia Smartphone

Sony has a very nice series of Xperia smartphones. Every year we see a new flagship device from Sony under its Xperia lineup. Sony produces a number of variants against its each flagship device. A set of variants is dedicated to various carriers all across the world. Carrier branded smartphones are built in collaboration with various carriers i.e. Verizon, At&t and others in order to provide the users the best possible opportunities to get hold of a device and also to provide the best packages that they can easily afford.

Although you can get an unlocked / carrier free standard Sony Xperia smartphone, you won’t be able to get the carrier perks such as data plans, packages and other goodies on a standard Xperia smartphone. Other than that, the completely unlocked / standard variants are not available in all the countries. Different regions have different carrier branded phones and users have to go with them because of no availability of standard variants.

Carrier branded devices apparently are not something annoying, but the problem with carrier-branded smartphones comes up when carriers push their own exclusive applications, themes into the smartphone to make sure that it looks like a carrier exclusive smartphone in the hands of a user. A carrier branded Android smartphone means a lot of annoying stuff like carrier limited applications, carrier restrictions and also a lot of bloatware.

Sony users have always been willing to get rid of the carrier branded applications, bloatware and the complete removal of the carrier branding from their smartphone. Apparently, debranding isn’t something that we will recommend, but if you’re actually tired because of the bloatware and a lot of branding everywhere on your phone, you might consider going ahead and removing all the traces of your carrier from your smartphone.

Users who have been looking for a way to get rid of carrier stuff from their Xperia smartphones can easily debrand it. All you’ve to do is to flash a customized stock firmware on your Xperia phone.

In order to debrand a Sony Xperia phone, you will need to flash a generic / customized stock firmware using Sony Flashtool. Before going ahead, please be reminded that this procedure will not void the warranty of your phone nor it will result in damaging it. The step-by-step guide is given below to debrand your Xperia smartphone. Let’s go through the early preparations and then get it done.

Early Preparations:

1. This is only for Sony Xperia Smartphones!

This ROM is only for the device mentioned above. Make sure that your model number matches the one listed above. To do so, go to Settings > About Device on your device and see your device’s model name/number to make sure that it’s a Sony Xperia. Flashing this firmware on any other device will result in bricking it so make sure that you meet this requirement first of all.

2. The battery should be charged at least over 60%.

Make sure that your battery is charged enough to complete the flashing process. In case your battery is low and your device goes dead during the flashing process, you may end up soft bricking your device as it won’t complete the flashing process.

3. Backup everything!

Just to be on the safe side, you may consider backing up each and everything from your Android device. This is highly recommended so that in case anything goes wrong, you still have the access to all of your data and you can restore it immediately. You may backup everything as listed below.

• Backup SMS Messages
• Also, Backup Call Logs
• Backup Contacts
• Backup Media – Copy your files manually to your PC or Laptop.

4. Enable USB Debugging Mode on your device.

Enable USB debugging mode on your device. To do so, tap settings>developer options>USB debugging. If you can’t find developer options in settings, then tap settings > about device and tap “Build Number” for 7 times and you’ll get em’ activated under settings.

5. Install and set up Sony Flashtool.

You must have installed Sony Flashtool. Find the full guide here. After installing Sony Flashtool, open the Flashtool folder from the drive where you installed it. Now open Flashtool>Drivers>Flashtool-drivers.exe and install the Flashtool, Fastboot & your Xperia device drivers from the list. [Important]

6. Download official Sony Xperia Firmware & create FTF file.

The next step is to get the FTF file for your desired firmware, in case you’ve already obtained the FTF, you may skip this step and just in case you haven’t, follow this guide to download official Sony Xperia Firmware & create the FTF file.

7. Use OEM data cable to establish a connection.

Make sure that you use the phone’s original data cable to establish a connection between your phone and the PC. Using a different data cable might result in interrupting the firmware installation.

Making sure that you’ve followed all the pre-requisites carefully, head towards the 2nd page in order to learn how to debrand your Sony Xperia smartphone now.

How To Debrand Your Sony Xperia Smartphone

1. Download the latest firmware and create the FTF file using the guide linked above.
2. Copy the file and paste in Flashtool>Firmwares folder.
3. Open Flashtool.exe now.
4. Hit the small lightning button on the top left corner and select Flashmode.
5. Select the FTF firmware file that you placed in the Firmware folder.
6. From the right side, select what do you want to wipe. Data, cache and apps log, all wipes are recommended, perhaps you may select if you don’t want.
7. Click on OK, and it will start preparing the firmware for flashing. This may take a little while to load.
8. As soon as the firmware is loaded, it will prompt you to attach the phone by turning it off and keeping the back key press.
9. For Xperia devices that came after 2011, Volume Down key will do the job of back key, just turn off your phone, keep the Volume Down key pressed and plug in the data cable.
10. As soon as the phone is detected in Flashmode, the firmware will start flashing, Do not leave the Volume Down key until the process is complete.
11. As soon as you see “Flashing ended or Finished Flashing” leave the Volume Down key, plug the cable out and reboot.
12. That’s All! Congrats! You’ve installed latest official Android on your Xperia smartphone. Your smartphone is debranded now and it’s in the complete standard state. Enjoy!

In case you got any queries or face any problems regarding this guide, feel free to stop by the comment box below and let us know. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks all!