The Nokia N95 and ultra convergence
Published by Steve Litchfield at 6:47 BST, July 13th 2007
Ultra convergence, as exemplified in the Nokia N95, is a topic I've commented on in the past, and not always in a positive way. Read on for some thoughts on the recent v12 firmware upgrade and a link to a very relevant essay...
The story so far: the Nokia N95 gets released, with v10 firmware and, while everyone applauds the sheer wonderfulness of the hardware, there are problems. The battery life is very disappointing, there are a number of serious camera bugs, GPS lock took an eternity, the limited RAM impinges on almost everything you try and do, from zooming into an image to using Web, I could go on.
The result was that I used the N95 for a short while and then got frustrated, switching to a less complicated smartphone, the E70 (which itself has had a bit of a chequered firmware history, but that's another story!)
Ah. A month later, v11 firmware appears on Nokia Software Updater and I upgraded in and instant and tried using it day-to-day. Not bad, RAM use seemed better, crashes were less frequent, but the GPS was still very slow and some camera bugs remained. The N95 got shelved once again, while I played with the E90 (something of a Nseries to Eseries theme seems to be developing here....)
Another month goes by and v12 appears. With Assisted GPS, with the N95 using a data connection to bring down the time taken to find the satellites, to great success. And even RAM usage seems a lot better, with terrific image zooming and Web use with almost no memory limits. And the camera 'sharpness' bug was finally fixed, hoorah.
Unfortunately, new bugs have crept in. There's now a hugely annoying missing-keypress bug, in which one in every couple of dozen keypresses gets err... 'missed' by the OS. And doing 'Search by category' inside Nokia Maps causes the phone to restart. Just as bad, I was using the camera last night to take some video at my daughter's school open day and, ten minutes after finishing shooting, the N95 was still very warm, symptomatic of some software process inside the device that's still running flat out, with the battery seemingly having gone from full to one bar inside half an hour, I've seen this sort of behaviour before on my old N93. Removing and reinserting the battery seemed to do the trick, with the phone obviously now returning to normal temperature and even showing three bars of battery left now that the rogue processor load wasn't present.
So, reluctantly, for the third time I've had to set the N95 aside, yet again for an Eseries device(!), this time the E61i.
Which is the one I picked in this week's hardware consensus article, if only because it's a one piece design that's virtually bulletproof and none of its features are so cutting edge (read N95-alike) that they're still immature.
You'll remember that I bemoaned the complexity of modern smartphones (and yes, even the new iPhone reportedly crashes quite a bit) in 'The way of the modern world', six months ago, in which I tried to rationalise the way that modern devices are now so complex that they can't be expected to work perfectly 100% of the time. Although at the time I was referring to the N93 as my main example, the same essay holds true today for the Nokia N95.
Still too complex, in hardware and software, for its own good?
But, as the essay concluded, 99.9% software reliability may be unreachable, but let's not be satisfied with 95%. Nokia, I'm looking at you here. Yes, the N95 may be the single most miniaturised and technologically impressive few cubic centimetres of silicon on the planet, but you created it in the first place and the project needs to be seen through to completion. Which in my mind means 99% reliability and very occasional bugs, not problems that are encountered on a daily basis.
So, let's raise our glasses to the v13 firmware, surely gestating as I write this.
Steve Litchfield, AllAboutSymbian, 13 July 2007
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Categories: Hardware, Editorial Thoughts
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition
News Discussion
raymasky
yeah...i really expected much more from this firmware update ...and have been seriously disappointed this time.Lots of more bugs have crept up ..and my phone restarts more than it did from V11.sad...really.. :mad:
clive1
if you dont like it stop picking it up and trying again.
i love the N95 and use it day after day and after updating to V12 i havent seen this missing keypress yet even after sending loads of sms messages.
Unregistered
Steve's running a Symbian site.
People want him to pick it up and report back what he thinks.
Why do people become all definsive of something they have bought (I'm probably guilty of it to, but much less so these days). You have bought something with your money. You should be expecting things from it. There is no need to start defending it. It is not your child.
Constructive criticism can lead to improvements. And the comments from Steve are very much along constructive lines.
Zuber
luarvique
Well, it is normal for people to get disappointed about a product, after it has been hyped to the skies. As I said before, N95 is just a phone, with rather regular (albeit plentiful) OMAP-based hardware. Personally, I would rather have an upgraded E70 with a new OMAP chipset and more memory.
neilhoskins
Agreed. The infuriating thing is when they just abandon a product and move on to the next thing. I never forgave Opera for giving up on their Epoc 5 version to concentrate on Symbian; and I never bought anything from Logitech again after they failed to release Windows XP drivers for the QuickcamPro. We need to vote with our feet by only buying stuff that is going to be continuously supported.
Unregistered
Hi, i have upgraded to version 12 do not receive any of the bugs you are talking about.
I can search by category from within the maps without a problem.
i dont get the key press problem.
everything seems to work great.
Maybe there is some other program on your phone or setting causing it?
Unregistered
"The infuriating thing is when they just abandon a product and move on to the next thing."
I know where you are coming from. But from a manufacturer viewpoint. Provided they supply you with something that works (another topic on its own), they have fulfilled their obligation. Unless they claim that they will supply future version for future OS etc. that is.
I think, there is an expectation that they should provide updates etc. for a reasonable timescale. Depends on the product as to how long. For smartphones, I think 2 years from when they stop manufacture would be sufficient. Though I'm probably being optimistic to expect that.
Zuber
slitchfield
Interestingly, the official Nokia Discussions thread on all this now has a post saying that the v12 upgrade has been withdrawn. Hopefully there's a fix on the way.
w.r.t. the Maps bug, I just don't buy the fact that it might be a clash with something else loaded. I only had 2 or 3 other apps installed. For an app to cause a complete restart of the OS means that it was trying to do something at a very low level and that there was a bug of some kind....
Anyway, roll on a fix for all the problems mentioned. As indicated in my post, I LOVE the N95 and really want to keep returning to it, but only if the software can get up to about 99%. Currently I'd say it's down around 85% reliable on the (patented) 'Steve Gut Feeling Index' (SGFI) 8-)
Steve
Ratkat
I have the 'Keypress' bug, but don't have any problems with 'Maps', search by category works fine for me.
Since the the V12 firmware upgrade just over a week ago by N95 hasn't restarted once, I still get the 'odd out of memory' problem with the browser with large sites.
Battery life is what it is with a daily charge required, I've even got used to the 'Turquoise Nokia Theme' after they cruelly removed the 'Default (blue/white)' one, this may be a bug as the files for it remain on the rom but are unaccessible
But by far the my biggest gripe with the N95 is the amount of Ram which is responsible for 80% of the problems with the N95, Nokia really should have learnt that lesson with the N80, E70 etc and although it would have used more battery life I think the benefits would outweight the the hit on battery life.
Having said that on the whole I am pleased with my N95, and since the release of Opera Mini 4 even the built in browser memory problem is less of an issue as I only use the built in browser when in range of my router now. When out and about I exclusively use Opera Mini which tends to handles big sites like eBay better, and if you set the 'Higher Image Quality' on in settings, pages look as good as in the Nokia Browser.
Not a bug in the N95 but it is a shame that the 'All About Symbian' site fails to display correctly in both the Nokia and Opera mini browsers, due it would appear at first glance in the Nokia Browsers case to the advertising banners, but no advertising = no site I guess!
Ratkat
Just out of interest Steve, Did you do a clean install of apps etc after the firmware upgrade or did you restore a backup.
If the latter it could be the reason for your Maps problem? as I read on another forum somewhere the bug only occured after a restored backup and that a *#7370# cured this.
slitchfield
I did 'Restore' the basic 'Settings', now I come to think of it. Which might perhaps explain why Maps was misbehaving. But the keypress bug has been widely reported and is surely something very fundamental.... And in any case, wasn't Ewan's rant in yesterday's audio podcast partly about the way it's becoming almost impossible to use the provided 'Backup' systems?
Ratkat
I listened to Evan's rant about backup and totally agree with it and is the reason I never use it, I much prefer to do a clean install.
If there was a new firmware every week than it might be a different story, but while updates only appear every couple of months the clean install lets me get rid of the junk I have accumulated on my phone. (and most likely a ton of left over files from apps I have tried and uninstalled)
I like to think that it leaves me with a 'more stable' system, which is a hangover from growing up with Windows I guess!!
2more
I have the 'Keypress' bug too. In the browser a click in the empty space wont bring up this menu bar and the browser itself crashes more frequently (App closed KERN-EXEC 3).
I think that the more we "complain" loudly - the more info we give to the ppl who can fix it :)
PS:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Ratkat
I like to think that it leaves me with a 'more stable' system, which is a hangover from growing up with Windows I guess!!
|
Very true!
slitchfield
Add another major camera bug to v12. I was holding focus on a shot just now and the entire phone shut down instantaneously. Needed the battery out and back in to get things working again. 8-(
Ratkat
Quote:
|
In the browser a click in the empty space wont bring up this menu bar
|
You need to press and hold to bring up the menu bar now
Unregistered
There is no new info here. It's a nokia smartphone and that means bugs. They simply don't have the ability to create quality software. It won't change anytime soon. The same is true for SE as well.
Chrissybear
I have the E61i like you Steve.
Best phone I've had since Psion days and even better than the communicators(!)
Unregistered
It's not clear why some people have enormous problems and why others don't have. I am pleased with´this phone from the beginning. The only thing that annoyed me was that it took so long to get a gps lock. Since v12 even this issue has disappeared for me. I really use this phone like hell and I have had 2 crashes since April. I guess that these problems people have result from the combination hardware version - installed applications - net provider etc... dunno..
2more
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ratkat
You need to press and hold to bring up the menu bar now
|
Thanks!
Now that it is a step forward, menu wont appear unnecessarily.
Unregistered
It's complex to produce 100s of operator versions of a firmware for 10s of phones. The compile-test cycle is long. This kind of thing is solvable, though, so I should think it will be solved.
slitchfield
Just to try and prove a point, I hard reset the N95 and then went into Maps. "Search by category" restarts the phone. I then removed the memory card (preloaded with UK roads using MapLoader 1.1] and Maps then behaved itself. So, although not an instrinsic bug within the v12 Maps, it's certainly a buggette/compatibility problem that Nokia's Maps team needs to address.
The keypress bug was worse than ever though - I can't see HOW this one escaped QA at Nokia...... 8-)
Ratkat
Steve, you mentioned that you have gone back to the E61i as your device of choice, any reason why you have picked this over the E90 ?
Or has the E90 gone back to Nokia.
Maps wise, I first installed them using map loader when on the V10 firmware back in April then located them on the memory card and saved them to my computer, then have just transferred them back to both V11 and V12 firmwares with no problems.
avithe1
slitchfield
ratkat: the E90's going up to Scotland for Ewan to hammer (not literally, I hope) during his mobile activities covering the Edinburgh Fringe for his month long audio podcast - nothing to do with Symbian, but hopefully he'll be able to send at least one article back telling us how well or how badly the E90 performed 8-)
Unregistered
"There is no new info here. It's a nokia smartphone and that means bugs. They simply don't have the ability to create quality software. It won't change anytime soon. The same is true for SE as well.
"
There just isn't enough competition in the market. SE have let us down badly by producing software that is even worse than Nokia's. Personally I won't be buying an N95 until they get the software right. In another 6 months, maybe...
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