Saturday
Mar152008
Nokia E61i Firmware Update
Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:12
Early this week, I found a new firmware for my Nokia E61i (out since October 2007). The version I had was v1.x, and this one was v2.0633.65.01 (press *#000# on your E61 to see the current firmaware version).
Updating goes through a separate application, but it should also be possible through download over the mobile network (I haven't tried this). All you need to know is explained on the Nokia website, but there are some thing you don't want to forget;
The first attempt failed for me. Even with all the warnings (DO NOT INTERRUPT THE UPDATING PROCESS OR DISCONNECT THE PHONE!!!) I rebooted the PC and disconnected the phone. Result, the phone didn't respond (this is where my deodorant came in). After this I restarted the upgrade process, and the phone got recognized (thankfully). After 10 minutes, the phone rebooted with the new firmware version.
First action was to restore all data and settings on the phone. Since I had some issues with my network connectivity I decided to remove the Access Points and reconfigure them.... Well, don't. First of all, I wasn't able to receive the configuration parameters from the mobile operator (SMS 'ja' to 1300), so I had to reconfigure them manually.
Their website has a step-by-step manual on configuring the E61i, but this didn't help either.
MMS functionality remained absent, and none of the applications was able to connect to the Internet by itself. I had to initiate the connection manually before browsing the web.
E-mail was even worse. Every time I had 'Packet Authentication' errors. So after a day I decided to restore the Access Points from my backup, and guess what... Everything worked again.
And now for the thing that have changed (at least the ones that I've noticed);
I haven't tried VoIP yet, but will try to do so soon (that's what happens when you don't pay for your own bills :-) )
Conclusion is that the phone didn't get better. There are some improvements, and there are some new annoyances. But my e-mail is stable at this moment.
Updating goes through a separate application, but it should also be possible through download over the mobile network (I haven't tried this). All you need to know is explained on the Nokia website, but there are some thing you don't want to forget;
- Use the Nokia Datasuite to create a FULL backup of the phone, because during the upgrade the phone goes back to factory defaults.
- Have lot's of patience (and some deodorant handy)
- Make sure the PC isn't doing anything else that might interfere with the update.
The first attempt failed for me. Even with all the warnings (DO NOT INTERRUPT THE UPDATING PROCESS OR DISCONNECT THE PHONE!!!) I rebooted the PC and disconnected the phone. Result, the phone didn't respond (this is where my deodorant came in). After this I restarted the upgrade process, and the phone got recognized (thankfully). After 10 minutes, the phone rebooted with the new firmware version.
First action was to restore all data and settings on the phone. Since I had some issues with my network connectivity I decided to remove the Access Points and reconfigure them.... Well, don't. First of all, I wasn't able to receive the configuration parameters from the mobile operator (SMS 'ja' to 1300), so I had to reconfigure them manually.
Their website has a step-by-step manual on configuring the E61i, but this didn't help either.
MMS functionality remained absent, and none of the applications was able to connect to the Internet by itself. I had to initiate the connection manually before browsing the web.
E-mail was even worse. Every time I had 'Packet Authentication' errors. So after a day I decided to restore the Access Points from my backup, and guess what... Everything worked again.
And now for the thing that have changed (at least the ones that I've noticed);
- the e-mail application seems more stable
- camera and video are still crappy (the time between the snapshot sound and the actual capture is still multiple seconds)
- Idle connections are terminated. This is a bad thing (for me at least), because I had my UMTS connection open all the time, and this way I received mail throughout the day. Now I have to connect each time I want to check my e-mail.
I haven't tried VoIP yet, but will try to do so soon (that's what happens when you don't pay for your own bills :-) )
Conclusion is that the phone didn't get better. There are some improvements, and there are some new annoyances. But my e-mail is stable at this moment.
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks for the post. I am Leary of firmware upgrades. I had read a while ago that the upgrade left the phone unusable and hence never tried it. I will again not try this out.
Thanks a million for your help and support
raj