Possibly as part of the whole Ovi server shake-up, possibly as part of the new Ovi Maps server architecture, Nokia's Maps servers have now been 'fixed' and will, after a frustrating couple of months of being broken, successfully match full seven character UK postcodes. Phew - just thought you'd like to know. Thanks to Imran for the heads-up.

Read on in the full article (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/9662_Nokia_Maps_2x_now_working_with.php).

This is really good news, I think that Nokia maps has a clearer display than Google Maps, at least for London streets, and with GPS on a 5800 is a great way to find one's way around. How easy will it be to upgrade the Maps application on the phone?

Have UK postcodes ever worked in Nokia Maps? Nokia Maps is useless at finding anything, in my experience. I usually have to find it with Google Maps, save it as a favourite, and then go to the favourite in Nokia Maps to drive there.

So I wonder if Nokia will credit Maps 2 licence holders with two extra months as the product has been nearly useless while they messed around with it ?

As N97 will be launched with Maps v2.0, at least it stops one group of new users slagging it off!

Not sure if it was ever working, or NOT working, in Maps 3 Beta,

But just tested it now, and via the ONLINE lookup, was able to do a seven digit postcode search.

Albeit, it ALSO returns SIMILAR postcodes too in the result list, so you stupidly need to scrool down a bit to the actual one you entered in full.

I wouldn't touch Nokia Maps 2 with a bargepole, my tests against Google Maps and TomTom should NM was very unreliable and with an extremely frustrating interface, for both walking and driving, so it went in the bin straight away.

What's the status of Maps 3 - is it radically better than Maps 2?

Re. Version 3 Beta

Yes - radically different and much much better. In fact, I have stopped using others (i.e. Google Maps) in its favour on an E71.

Postcode searching has alway worked on it.