Sony A77 Reports of Buggy Firmware and Dead Cameras

[gimp69]

What is Sony doing about the reports from the Far East about the high failure rate of Sony A77s?  The A77 has only just been delivered to the UK and there are already two dead A77s I know of, both from Jessops.

There appears to be something really broken in the A77 firmware or a bad batch of A77s has been produced.

It's bad enough that the A77 high ISO isn't as good as a two year old Nikon D7000 and now we have reports of buggy firmware and cameras literally dying and being sent back.

I am glad that I didn't pre-order.  SORT THIS OUT.

[tberry6686]

It's not just Jessops by the look of things.  Got my A77 on Friday and took it out to play with - no issues and hugely impressed.  Same on Saturday.  Tried a sigma lens today and all ok - switched back to the sony lens I was using previously and now nothing seems to work.  Tried everything I can think of including reset to defaults with no luck - will be on the phone to Sony first thing

[a77Disaster]

Here we go, the first video on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvN13V-mb1g.

Feel quite disappointed.

[gimp69]

Incredible that I have been waiting years for the A700 replacement and Sony make a huge cock-up like this.  Sony can't afford to be doing this sort of thing, Canon and Nikon must be laughing all the way to the bank.

You may also wish to drop a comment on the Sony UK Facebook Page about your displeasure.

[Thalamus.]

Hi all,

Just to let you we have passed your comments in this thread onto Sony..

If we hear anything, although we can't promise anything, but if we do we'll let you all know asap..

[gimp69]

Thanks, every little helps!

[gimp69]

Latest rumour is that the  production A77 has a new Bionz processor and the firmware used was for  the older processor on pre-production cameras.  Nobody tested the  firmware on the production version of the new Bionz processor!

[gimp69]

Update:

There is a rumour that Sony UK have stopped shipping the A77.

Message was edited by: gimp69

Message was edited by: gimp69

[Mick2011 · Accepted solution]

According to an announcement yesterday, Sony will shortly release a firmware update (v1.02) for the A77 presumably addressing any issues which may be affecting the new model.

http://support.sony-europe.com/dime/hotnews/hotnews.aspx?site=odw_en_GB&f=HN_SLT_FW

Cheers

Mick

[gimp69]

1.02 is already installed on the production cameras, 1.02 is the faulty version causing the problem.  It is 1.03 that has already been seen on cameras in Thailand.

What that page is saying is that a new firmware is due mid-October that can be applied to cameras running 1.02 if you see what I mean?

1.03 should be released NOW.