Still looking for a high-end Android tablet with software navigation buttons (which rules out pretty much the whole Samsung product range), the Sony Xperia Z2 tablet still beats the competition by far.

The situation back then

In early June this year I bought a device like that only to discover soon that there seems to be a systematic problem with the tough screen that’s troubling lots of users, including me.

• In certain situations the touch screen would not detect multi touch events, e.g. it would skip keys when typing on the onscreen keyboard
• It generally has a problem with two touches that are aligned on a straight line, i.e. two fingers with the same y-value or with the same x-value, resulting in erratic touches, which would be interpreted as random tap events
• Occasionally the device would not recognise touches at all or they need to be very hard / firm. Turning the display off and on usually helped for a short time.

A lot of users complained about this in online forums, some reviews mention it and youtube videos demonstrated the problem:

It was unclear if this is a grounding issue or something that could be fixed with a software update. The software update 17.1.1.A.0.402 came but even 4 month after the device was released by Sony, this issue still wasn’t fixed.

The situation now

Firmware 17.1.2.A.0.314 was released middle of July. Even though news sites repeat the release notes that the issue has been fixed, users are still reporting problems with the latest version:

Users in forums still complain. No solution is known. And the worst:

Sony has not even publicly acknowledged the problem.

Local stores still sell the Z2 with the flawed touch screen, but no information anywhere if this problem is known, analysed and will eventually be fixed.

Inexistent product support

This inexistent product is incredible. This product has been released half a year ago and is still the top tablet on the market as of today and an incredible device. I can’t believe Sony still hasn’t acknowledged a problem or provided a fix that makes this device actually usable. Sony here seems to sell a broken device despite of many users complaining about the poor touch screen but without any hope that Sony will fix the device. Instead Sony decides to work on the Z3 and Z3 tablet compact, while the Z2 still has so much potential to be actually bought.

Not only can’t I buy the Z2 because it is basically broken by design, I must hesitate to buy any Sony product at all because of their poor customer service and product quality.

I can’t believe how bad Sony’s customer and product service is and can only recommend to not buy any products from companies, that care so little about their users.

Unfortunately there is no matching tablet on the market as of today so all I can do is wait.