Sony Xperia 5 III (sony-pdx214)

Features
Flashing Whether it is possible to flash the device with pmbootstrap flasher.	Works
USB Networking After connecting the device with USB to your PC, you can connect to it via telnet (initramfs) or SSH (booted system).	Works
Internal storage eMMC, SD cards, UFS...	Broken
Battery Whether charging and battery level reporting work.	Untested
Screen Whether the display works; ideally with sleep mode and brightness control.	Works
Touchscreen	Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration	Works
Audio Audio playback, microphone, headset and buttons.	Untested
Camera	Untested
Connectivity
WiFi	Untested
Bluetooth	Untested
GPS	Untested
Modem
Calls	Untested
SMS	Untested
Mobile data	Untested
Miscellaneous
FDE Full disk encryption and unlocking with unl0kr.	Untested
Sensors
Accelerometer Handles automatic screen rotation in many interfaces.	Untested

Sony Xperia 5 III
Manufacturer	Sony
Name	Xperia 5 III
Codename	sony-pdx214
Released	2021
Type	handset
Hardware
Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 (SM8350)
CPU	Octa-core (1x2.84 GHz Cortex-X1 ; 3x2.42 GHz Cortex-A78 ; 4x1.80 GHz Cortex-A55)
GPU	Adreno 660
Display	1080x2520 6.1" OLED
Storage	256 GB, 512 GB
Memory	8 GB
Architecture	aarch64
Software
Original software The software and version the device was shipped with.	Android 11
Extended version The most recent supported version from the manufacturer.	Android
postmarketOS
Category	testing
Mainline Instead of a Linux kernel fork, it is possible to run (Close to) Mainline.	yes

This device has been tested with postmarketOS, but its device package has not yet been added to the postmarketOS repositories.
This means that it cannot be selected in pmbootstrap.

Contributors

Marijn

Users owning this device

00p513 (Notes: Porting Ubuntu Touch)
Marijn (Notes: Mainline target)
Owlow (Notes: daily driver, stock for now o,o)
Toastal (Notes: Daily driver with LineageOS for microG)

Overview

This device belongs to the Sony Sagami platform, which is the Sony Xperia 1 III (sony-pdx215) and Xperia 5 III (this one, pdx214).

How to unlock the device

Enter Developer options on Android and enable OEM Unlock. Then follow the official Sony instructions to unlock the bootloader.

How to enter flash mode

While USB is plugged in, hold Power + Volume Up until the LED becomes blue.

Installation

WARNING: DO NOT EVER EVER EVER TRY TO ENABLE UFS ON NON-VENDOR/NON-SODP KERNELS! IT WILL ERASE THE CHIP CLEAN (INCLUDING THE BOOTLOADER!) CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!

Since UFS doesn't work, the rootfs must be flashed to an SD card. Read the Partition Layout article to learn more.

$ pmbootstrap install --sdcard=/dev/path-to-sdcard-device

Due to a bootloader error with device tree overlays, the DTBO partition must be emptied. Create a file with two empty bytes and flash it through fastboot, then flash the kernel.

$ truncate -s 2 dtbo_empty.img
$ fastboot flash dtbo dtbo_empty.img
$ pmbootstrap flasher flash-kernel