The Sony Xperia Z is without a doubt a marvelous phone. The 5-inch flagship Android smartphone from Sony packs the latest technology with a powerful processor, 13-megapixel camera, and a water-resistant body to name a few. For Sony, the success of this phone could determine their mobile strategy while its doom could forever lock Sony out of the top 5 smartphone list. The last thing Sony or any company ever wants to deal with is a defective design or manufacturing process. But that may be exactly what Sony has on their hands. Thanks to a tipster and after our own digging on Sony’s support site, it seems quite a few people are experiencing issues with their Sony Xperia Z speakers.

 At least 6-7 weeks ago, the speaker on my Xperia Z stopped working. Not entirely, but I’d say I had about 20% volume. Calls, notifications, video, music.. anything that required sound failed to work correctly. I got quite a scare as you can imagine – especially after dropping over €500 on the phone! – but I assumed it would come back to life within a few hours. 

Maybe not the best marketing idea after all

While the symptoms differ from low volume on their device to no audio, one thing is clear. The issue seems to arise out of nowhere with no specific trigger where the speakers may have began to malfunction after a system update. In fact, as inexplicably as the issue can come to fruition, so can a fix where users have reported that miraculously, their Xperia Z speakers began to function as new again. The only issue is that for some, the time between the two has been weeks. Some have pointed out that many speakers are showing symptoms after being in water, be it a short or prolonged period. Could there be an issue with the phones anti-water coding? Hard to say, though since then, Sony has advised that you don’t use your Xperia Z speakers for at least 3 hours after being submerged in water. In fact, according to Sony which we’ve verified, this is stated right in the manual on page 125:

 If water gets on the speaker, dry the speaker for approximately three hours before using it again. 

As our tipster put it:

 Although I think this is Sony just covering themselves, wouldn’t it be a huge nuisance if that was really the case? If the phone gets wet/submerged in water, I then have to remember to put my phone on silent so that if the phone rings the speaker isn’t used? That’s a bit of a pain… 

The good news so far seems to be that for most, the volume does come back. Some have reported that a simple phone reset did the trick while others have waited for weeks until eventually, the phone’s volume begins to function properly again. While it might be too early to cry foul and assume there is something wrong with the entire Xperia Z production, we hope that Sony takes this seriously and looks at their manufacturing process to cover any issues if present while going above and beyond to satisfy current Xperia Z owners as this is not the first report of Xperia Z units inexplicably dying. In the mean time, we hope Sony and T-Mobile are not continuing to run with their water-resistant campaign.

Discuss:

Have you experiences any audio issues with your Xperia Z speakers? If you wish to remain anonymous, remember that you can always fill out our tips form which stores none of your data.