The Nokia X6's v12 Firmware lets you trust it again

[Ewan]

Following on from his review (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4) of the Nokia X6, Ewan Spence receives the new v12 firmware with open arms and reports back here on the transformation it makes to intensive use of this music-focussed smartphone.

Read on in the full article.

[VIP_RoMaNcE_VIP]

Thank You........

Ewan,

As usual a great review. My question is: "how long is it going to take Nokia to wake up and fix their offing phones?" Why software upgrade after upgrade after upgrade to fix something that should be correct straight from the factory. While not an iPhone lover, you have to admit that Apple gets the user experience, and the firmware right the first time. Nokia is still floundering and these back and forths about being the largest phone manufacture mean squat. If Nokia had to compete solely on the basis of the N97, N97 Mini (pretty good phone), X6 against the iPhone, Nokia would get their clocks cleaned. If there was no such thing as bottom feeding customers purchasing the lower end phones, Nokia would be in deep doo doo.

[clonmult]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ewan,

As usual a great review. My question is: "how long is it going to take Nokia to wake up and fix their offing phones?" Why software upgrade after upgrade after upgrade to fix something that should be correct straight from the factory. While not an iPhone lover, you have to admit that Apple gets the user experience, and the firmware right the first time. Nokia is still floundering and these back and forths about being the largest phone manufacture mean squat. If Nokia had to compete solely on the basis of the N97, N97 Mini (pretty good phone), X6 against the iPhone, Nokia would get their clocks cleaned. If there was no such thing as bottom feeding customers purchasing the lower end phones, Nokia would be in deep doo doo.

Nokia has been doing this on their firmware releases for years.

All of the Symbian devices I've owned over the past few years - N73, N95 and N85 and 5800 had absolutely dire initial firmware releases. N73 was great at v4, N95 at v20 was good, and the N85 at v30+ is finally good.

But it shouldn't take a couple of major firmware updates to get it right - they're using the paying customer as a beta tester, which is utterly inexcusable.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ewan,

Why software upgrade after upgrade after upgrade to fix something that should be correct straight from the factory. While not an iPhone lover, you have to admit that Apple gets the user experience, and the firmware right the first time. .

This is true of the user interface, and mostly on the firmware but as a long time Nokia developer who is now carrying an iPhone because I am getting up to speed on iPhone app development I can promise you that there is a whole list of things wrong with the iPhone that Nokia have been getting right for years.

The crucial thing is that the user interface is the thing that users see most of and pay most attention to. Apple's UI is so good that the fundamental iPhone flaws are overlooked/forgiven.

[RollerSMB]

It's already been raised, so I can't be blamed for making this an iPhone vs Symbian thing.. Can I?.. anyways..
I think it's just a matter of priorities. Both Nokia and Apple try to release their products as soon as possible. In that rush, however, something has to give. For Nokia, it's testing (hence early adopter firmware issues), for Apple, it's features (copy/paste, multitasking, etc). So it really is all dependant on what you want. As a power user, I prefer a feature rich, potentially unstable firmware, because I can deal with/forgive it. But many non power users prefer a feature limited stable firmware (and I've recommended iPhone a lot lately because of this). Simply different strokes for different folk! (queue 'why can't we be friends' track here )

[clonmult]

Originally Posted by RollerSMB

It's already been raised, so I can't be blamed for making this an iPhone vs Symbian thing.. Can I?.. anyways..
I think it's just a matter of priorities. Both Nokia and Apple try to release their products as soon as possible. In that rush, however, something has to give. For Nokia, it's testing (hence early adopter firmware issues), for Apple, it's features (copy/paste, multitasking, etc). So it really is all dependant on what you want. As a power user, I prefer a feature rich, potentially unstable firmware, because I can deal with/forgive it. But many non power users prefer a feature limited stable firmware (and I've recommended iPhone a lot lately because of this). Simply different strokes for different folk! (queue 'why can't we be friends' track here )

Nokia just seem to be in a rush to get incomplete products out the door.

Apple don't. The missing features were generally omitted on purpose - clipboard and MMS being the prime examples. Multi tasking not currently being allowed is for other purposes completely.

I personally don't agree with you - the platform should be solid at release, and missing features is easier to live with.

For example, what if one of the bugs causes dropped calls? Thats utterly inexcusable on a phone.

I am a fan of Nokia, but not to the point of being a fanboi type. I recognise that they've got some potentially great products, but darned near every single one (possibly with the exception of the Maemo platform) is blighted by early (and late) firmware problems.

Obviously they seriously lack in testing. I've been working in software development for years and realise how difficult it can be to thoroughly test products, but the Nokia early releases really strike me as having absolutely minimal testing to the level that I would never expect from a consumer product.

Originally Posted by clonmult

I personally don't agree with you - the platform should be solid at release, and missing features is easier to live with.

For example, what if one of the bugs causes dropped calls? Thats utterly inexcusable on a phone.

LOL! That's precisely what happened when the iPhone 3G came out in 2008. They had to rush out a firmware update in the middle of August 2008 to put it right and then another 2.1 version in September. People do tend to forget Apple's errors quite quickly though.

Nokia tend to get the call quality, stability and signal strength right. Apple STILL have a problem with signal strength - but that's OK because the iPhone is not about being a phone, it's an "experience" <vomit />

Nokia did have a bit of a problem with the 5800 and some US networks, but generally they are good at making their devices work as telephones. They never get the credit they deserve though.

[Craig.O]

Have been following this phone ever since learning of its planned release back in 2009. Sits nicely in my preferred products space i.e. functionally fairly rich capacitive phone (but not too techy such as nexus one) and nice design / size (without being an iPhone). Like many people posting on this site, have very much of a Nokia heritage with my phones (albeit not exclusively) but have become a little frustrated recently that Nokia don't seem to be able to turn out a phone with all the right boxes ticked (would love to have a chance to speak to Nokia designers!).

On a separate (but obv related) note, have been following Samsung with some interest recently - they have made credible entries into the tv and laptop space and I've been predicting that they will soon stake a serious claim as major player in non-Asian mobile market. Well I don't know if this is the phone to do it, but the leaked report (below) hints at an extremely well executed / spec'd phone. No doubt we will find out more when it gets formally released - probably at mobile conference in Barcelona today - but makes me a bit sad when I compare this to the X6 pictures, specs and reviews.
http://dailymobile.se/2010/02/13/pic...leaked-photos/