I have a Xperia Neo V - which is now spare and decided it would be good to use as a running phone - with a running tracker app on and music app.

However Android is really old on it (2.3.4). OTA updates say it is the most up to date version.

I've started to read into a lot of what I need to do and so far I have...

unlocked the bootloader - using the wire trick.
rooted the phone

I installed CWM from the playstore but from what I can tell it isn't the best way due to being on the system partition?

What I'm not sure about is how to actually upgrade the firmware. Most of the latest versions state that they need the partitions moving around to work. Also is it worth going for Lollipop or would it be better with kitkat?

I'm just after something that will be familiar compared to the other devices in the house and will be maybe a bit quicker and stable.

If anyone can give me a bit of a dummies guide to doing the next part it would be really appreciated.

Thanks

I have a Z3 Compact and a Z2 Tablet. Both have been upgraded to 23.1.A.1.28. With the previous 5.0.2 build, everything seemed fine but with the minor upgrade last week, I now get the message: "Android is upgrading" "starting apps" whenever I re-boot. Not a big issue as the reboot continues after 10 seconds. As this happens on both devices, I am assuming it's something to do with an app that's on both of the machines but I don't know enough about this stuff to know how to identify where the issue lies. Would it be a case of disabling all apps and bringing them back one by one? I have hundreds of apps so want to avoid a factory reset if I can.

I am also thinking that it is not a common problem as I have trawled around and only see reference to this with rooters and flashers so again, assume it is something common to both my devices rather that a system issue.

Any pointers please?

I managed to get a hold of a Razr M still running 98.30.1. Is there a way to take only the .10 (with proper build date) OTA & then unlock the bootloader? thanks! :)