You’re welcome! I actually did it out of sheer curiosity 
I was also interested in checking if it would have any positive impact on 10 III’s power consumption. Unfortunately, it remains the same.
P.S. I wouldn’t bother to do it if I didn’t have the rootfs and home backup, which allows to fully restore everything with such an ease. Warmly recommended!
After 20 days of use I fully confirm that with Android 12 (62.1.A.0.675) there is no echo and no color banding / yellowish tint. Fingerprint sensor works much better than with any other Android version I’ve ever used on my 10 III.
Additionally, a small update is that both SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_12_4.19_v1c_lena and SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_12_4.19_v2a_lena binaries seem to work perfectly fine with SFOS flashed on top of Android 12 version 62.1.A.0.675. I’ve been using v2a for a few days and I haven’t encountered absolutely any problems. I think it makes a good match if both the underlying Android OS and the AOSP binaries are of the same version (in this case 12).
P.S. There are also newer Android 12 binaries (SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_12_4.19_v3a_lena.zip) but they do not work for me (no mobile network and no WiFi), just like Android 13 binaries.
Just as a reference, for others to understand what your point is:
Jolla recommends to use SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_11_4.19_v9a_lena.zip for the Xperia 10 III, but they also suggest to use Android 11 as a base for flashing SailfishOS.
The latter clearly turned out to be detrimental, but may be due to caution, because Jolla might have not tested using an Android 12 base well.
They say: “Android version 11 (recommended) or Android version 12”. It isn’t clear why Android 11 is the one recommended while Android 12 is also suggested/allowed, without any remarks about any possible issues of using it. I guess that the only reason is that Android 11 has been tested/used by them longer than Android 12, so they keep recommending it even though they found no issues with Android 12.
Sadly, it discourages people from flashing Android 12 as a base for SFOS, which in turn prevents them from taking advantage of no echo and no color banding, both fully fixed by Sony in Android 12. As I wrote earlier, the fingerprint sensor also seems to work much better.
Considering that binaries can be flashed back and forth at literally any time without affecting the installed SFOS, everyone can easily and securely test them and see if they work OK for him, as in case of any problems they can be simply reflashed back to the Jolla recommended ones. It is as easy as
fastboot flash oem_a File_name_of_binaries.img
fastboot reboot
You convinced me. I now flashed A11 v9a → A12 v2a, and
Thanks for guinea-pigging this for us @wetab73 
I got my replacement for my broken 10 III and this time I tried the latest android 13 offered by Emma (forgot the name) and then I flashed SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_12_4.19_v2a_lena binaries.
Let’s see how it behaves this time since I suffered with color banding and echo before!
I’m running the latest SFOS on top of the latest Android 13 and binaries for Android 11, recommended by Jolla. No issues so far.
I tried Android 12 binaries as well, but I was having issues with the camera in Android apps so I reverted back.
@lkraav, do I understand correctly, that you originally flashed SailfishOS over an Android 11 base and used the unzipped SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_11_4.19_v9a_lena.zip for flashing, which resulted in well visible “tint” (»weird “paint blob” in any app launcher folder screen background«) and fingerprint sensor issues (»it intermittently wouldn’t easily [recognise the finger]«)?
Then only by flashing the unzipped SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_12_4.19_v2a_lena you resolved these issues (i.e. »“tint” is gone« and »fingerprint sensor quality improvements«)?
I.e. you did not reflash the device to Android 12 and reinstalled / restored SailfishOS, correct?
P.S: Caveat is, it may not be working this way. For any fresh installation (or after having backed up the whole SailfishOS partition (i.e. root & home volume) via dd and additionally all relevant data on file-system level) it is definitely advisable to update an Xperia 10 III to the last Android 12 release before flashing SailfishOS!
Fully independent of that, you can then choose and / or replace at any time a version of Sony’s software binaries as you like.
I.e. you did not reflash the device to Android 12 and reinstalled / restored SailfishOS, correct?
Correct: I skipped full Android 12 flash. Performed only fastboot flash oem_a.
Tint/Blob fixed is 100% confirmed, as it’s easy to tell.
Rest of problem fixes: it’s day 1, bit early to tell. But half-day later, I don’t see any regressions at least.
I’ve noticed some missclicks and shutter lag in camera, but no color banding, no echo so far and fingerprint works fine.
Battery looks just as good if not better.
Too soon, but the setup looks promising.
Tint
Well, maybe I was roo quick to comment on «tint». My «tint» has always been what’s seen below:
It’s a weird paint blobbish thing generated by overlaying app switcher cards with launcher icons. That’s still here with A12 binaries flash.
But maybe it’s not at all what @wetab73 has been referring to as «tint»? EDIT and wow, just looked at this screenshot on laptop: no tint, blob, banding or whatever! Whereas it’s clearly visible on phone screen.
Regardless, end of day 2, everything is still working great otherwise. It probably makes sense to have A12 as your SFOS base.
PS did you see my App Support vs Location win from y-day (maybe OpenGApps-specific): GPS/Location not working for Android apps - #38 by lkraav
I don’t know if it’s the same but sometimes i do have some weird transparencies with previously opened apps, like i load a webpage on the browser, then close it and open fernschreiber, and i see the webpage all over sailfish elements, althought it’s hardly noticeable…
Wondering if it’s the same, especially since i’m on an xa2…
I see that it is still misunderstood. It is NOT the binaries what fixes the tint/banding and the echo issues. It is the UNDERLYING ANDROID 12 (or 13) OS, the one that you flash using EMMA, and then you flash SFOS on top of it. Binaries alone (i.e. what you flash to the oem_a partition) actually don’t seem to be doing anything regarding those specific issues.
So, once again, in order to get the display tint/banding and the echo issues fixed you need to flash Android OS using EMMA. You need either Android 12 (tested with 62.1.A.0.675, i.e. the last Android 12 update, I don’t know if earlier versions already had those fixes or not) or Android 13. But EMMA only offers Android 11 or Android 13, there is no Android 12 flashable image available via EMMA. So either you simply flash Android 13 via EMMA (tested by me and found fully working, actually I didn’t notice any differences vs. Android 12), or if you prefer Android 12 (as per Jolla recommendations) then the only way to get it is to flash Android 11 (version .109) via EMMA, then re-lock the bootloader in order to be able to get OTA updates inside Android, and then spend a few hours on installing one by one all consecutive (8 or so) Android 11 and then Android 12 OTA updates within Android itself, until you reach the 62.1.A.0.675 version. Then you need to unlock the bootloader again, and flash SFOS on top of it.
That’s the ONLY way to have the tint/banding and echo fixed, as those fixes are in the base Sony Android OS, not in the binaries.
P.S. You can’t illustrate the banding or tint issue on a screenshot. It is a technical issue of the display, it is not visible on a screenshot. You’d need to take a photo of the display.
But you DON’T have A12 as SFOS base. So far you only have A12 binaries, which don’t change anything regarding the display banding/tint and echo…
Sorry if this is already here somewhere, but i can backup my phones partitions, install android 13, install sfos and then restore my partitions?
thus no fresh sfos install?
Yes, you can backup rootfs and home in recovery and then restore the same way. It gives a perfect 100% restore. The partition to backup (containing both rootfs and home) on the 10 III is /dev/sda79
But before restoring your backup, you need to start SFOS once. If you restore it directly after flashing, Sailfish will not boot.
That’s right. So the whole procedure is as follows:
I am sure that it is also in this thread, but due to so much information here I am a little bit lost:
how do I backup and restore the partition correctly ( with a Linux box)?
You do it in recovery. So the procedure for the 10 III is as follows:
fastboot flash boot_a hybris-recovery.img
fastboot flash boot_b hybris-recovery.img
fastboot reboot
go to recovery (by simply rebooting the device)
telnet to the device from your computer:
telnet 10.42.66.66
select option 3) (shell), then enter your security code
mount your microSD card (at least 105 GB of free space is needed for an uncompressed backup):
mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
dd if=/dev/sda79 of=/mnt/backup.img bs=1M
It may take 40+ minutes (or even more than one hour with a slower memory card). No progress is shown. If you would like to see progress, open another telnet connection and type:
watch -n5 'kill -USR1 $(pgrep ^dd$)'
This will show progress every 5 seconds.
umount /mnt
and then exit recovery mode.
Finally, flash the normal hybris-boot.img to both boot slots:
fastboot flash boot_a hybris-boot.img
fastboot flash boot_b hybris-boot.img
fastboot reboot
That’s all.
The backup can be restored the same way as you created it, i.e. by typing:
dd if=/mnt/backup.img of=/dev/sda79 bs=1M
Thanks for this comprehensive explanation!