Smartphone manufacturers have a bad reputation for dragging their feet when it comes to upgrading to new versions of the Android OS. That's not the case with Sony though, and it's just surprised Xperia owners with an early upgrade.
As 9To5Google reports, Sony confirmed in November last year that it's latest smartphone models, the Xperia 1 II, Xperia 5 II, and Xperia 10 II would all be upgraded to Android 11 before the end of January this year. Sony's older handsets—the Xperia 1 and Xperia 5—would also receive the upgrade, but not until February. However, Sony is ahead of schedule.
Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 owners are already reporting the upgrade to Android 11 has happened on their device. The download is over 1GB in size and includes the December 2020 security patch, leaving owners with handsets from 2019, but which are bang up-to-date in terms of operating system and security. If you haven't received the upgrade on your Xperia device yet, navigate to Settings > System and refresh the System update option. If no update is available, it just means Sony hasn't rolled it out for your territory yet.
Android 11 launched back in September last year and brought with it a range of new features including conversation spaces, a new device control menu, a limit on what third-party apps can access on your phone, as well as a plethora of features developers can use to polish their Android apps. PCMag's review found Google's latest mobile OS to be full of welcome conveniences.