Firmware 3.10 – It’s Better, Innit?

I, like most people of reasonable disposition, didn’t like many of the changes Sony forced upon us in Firmware 3.00.  Sure, the dynamic themes were cute but the bigger fonts were an issue and the Friends list was a design disaster.  Thankfully, Sony seemed to have listened to our complaints (and we did complain in our masses, to be fair) and today, after installing Firmware 3.10, things appear to be on the up – the Friends list no longer has those ridiculous massive boxes around all the names and I now actually prefer the way the other options in each column fade away when they’re not the highlighted selection.

I also think the Trophy system has been tweaked a little too – I can now finally sync the damned things (haven’t been able to do for weeks) and a quick compare with a couple of PSN friends seemed much quicker, and I’m tempted to think the actual wi-fi has been tuned a bit too – the connection level seems higher, I’ve not had a drop-out yet and downloads are nippier than usual, although this could of course be the old placebo effect.   I like the way your photos are now in a grid, too – makes so much more sense than listing the whole lot vertically.

I’ve not tried the Facebook option, and probably never will, but I’m aware this is just the start of that integration path so that’s cool, but pop-up Twitter notifications could be great if Sony pursue that line of thought.  I think that’s most of the major things that are public facing (I’ve heard tonight about one thing 3.10 does some things differently but that won’t affect any end user, though) so overall, yeah, this is heading back in the right direction.  The Video Store is utterly fantastic – my connection isn’t quick enough to really use the HD option, but the whole thing is slick and efficient and will hopefully be a big success for Sony.