The Sony Xperia Z is a great phone, I own it myself. The best thing about it is it’s something new and helps freshen things up from the Samsung Galaxies and the iPhones. The phone is great but Sony haven’t been the greatest of OEMs when it comes to updates for the phone, luckily the Sony Xperia Z has excellent support from the Android community resulting in many customs ROMs with latest features.
One of the better custom ROMs available for the Sony Xperia Z is the CM10.1 and MIUI based Avatar firmware which brings Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean to the phone along with it’s improvements in features and performance. The ROM is pretty stable so you can use it as your daily driver.
Follow the steps below to install CM10.1 and MIUI based Avatar JB on your Sony Xperia Z, please make sure that you have a custom recovery installed before attempting this tutorial.
Step 1- Download the CM10.1 and MIUI based Avatar JB ROM and Google Apps.
Step 2- Connect your Sony Xperia Z to a computer using mass storage mode.
Step 3- Copy and paste the ROM and Google Apps zips downloaded in step 1, into the root folder of the mass storage device. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the root, but putting it in the root helps finding it easier.
Step 4- Turn off your Sony Xperia Z and reboot into the bootloader. Do this by pressing and holding the Volume Up + Volume Down and Power buttons.
Step 5. Use volume rocker to navigate and power button to click. Perform a data wipe + cache wipe
Step 6. Navigate to flash ZIP from SD card and choose ZIP from SD card
Step 7. Select the CM10.1 and MIUI based Avatar JB’s zip downloaded in step 1 first. Select it using the power button and confirm installation.
Step 8. Now do the same things with the Google Apps zip file.
Step 9. When installation is done, go back to the main menu of CWM and perform a reboot.
Feel free to let us know if you have any problems or difficultly with installing the ROM in the comments below.