Despite not actually being mentioned on the Nokia Software Update web page, the long awaited firmware upgrade for the Nokia N93 is actually online - I just updated one of the editorial N93s to v11.0.034. There's up to 3 Megabytes more of free RAM, better memory management all round and a faster camera, watch the forum for a detailed changelog.
Read on in the full article.
Note that the usual disclaimers over backups apply - this update DOES wipe everything from your device. Backup fully using PC Suite, sync and also write down or copy the files for information in third party applications that you think might be on the internal disk.
My upgrade went smoothly other than losing the values in my TimeTrack application.... c'est la vie.....
If you notice any other improvements or find a changelog, please post here or in the N93 forum....
Steve Litchfield
Summarising changes as far as I can see:
Around 3 to 5MB more free RAM, depending on your configuration
Better memory management, less 'Out of memory crashes', even when zooming right in on images
Faster still/video mode switching in Camera
Roll in of the SMS sending patch from other 3rd Edition devices
Plus, doutbless assorted minor bug fixes.
Good job, Nokia. Though the fact that the camera's photos are still plagued by tiny specks of noise and compression artefacts tends to confirm my suspicion that the camera's capabilities aren't fixable in firmware but are set within the camera electronics..... 8-(
Ah well. Still a great device.
Steve
Am I missing something here? When I go to the posted link, the N93 isn't available as one of the choices of phones to update.
Try http://europe.nokia.com/softwareupdate - it seems not all their mirrors have the full device list yet....
Steve
Ah, that's better. Thanks!
Oh, and another thing that bit me in the rear end: the phone memory backup doesn't backup applications that you have in the phone memory, for some moronic reason. It only backs up data. Meaning, I now have to reinstall all my applications. Sigh... you'd think the update process would warn you, but no.
No wonder people don't realise you can install application on Symbian phones - because not even Nokia themselves takes the ability seriously! I know I could have installed my applications to the memory card instead of the phone memory, but as far as I can tell, the N93 has about 30MB phone memory specifically set aside for applications. Therefore, I see no reason to install applications to the memory card, since that would make them start more slowly.
Yup, agreed, this is silly of Nokia. Still, it only takes a few minutes after a firmware upgrade to install them back on, and you have the peace of mind of knowing you've got 'fresh' copies (and often new versions, if you build checking for these into your routine)....
Does the onboard 'Backup to memory card' routine back up any better? Or maybe that's what you meant? I tend to use PC Suite....
Steve
I backed up both using PC suite and the internal "backup to memory card", but I restored using the memory card.
Yes, Nokia backup tools are a complete joke.
Before i ugraded my E61 to the latest firmware I did all I could to to make the subsequent restoring process as smooth as possible: backed up the phone memory on the memory card, did a PC suite backup, synched with outlook, wrote down the list of all the third party applications i had on my phone (had more than 30 of them) as well as all the important information i has in Notes and Handy Safe. This alone took me a good hour.
Then i upgraded the firmware. That went fine. But the restoring process afterwards was a complete disaster.
All that i could restore was my contacts, calendar entries, notes and a few applications (maybe 3 or 4 out of the 30+ that i had on my phone memory prior the upgrade). Worse, whenever i re-inserted the memory card, an "installing" message poped-up (installing what? where? why?) and stayed there for 5 minutes until an error message appeared saying that installing (what? where? why?) failed . Everytime i restarted my phone this ***** "installing" message poped up.
I won't in all the details but suffice to say that it tooks me 7 hours of full-time work to get my phone back up and running to the same state as it was before the upgrade. Or so i thought. A little while later, i tried to launch one of the Java application i had installed on my memory card. That's when i realized that *none* of the Java application i had installed on my memory card worked anymore after the firmware upgrade. They simply refused to launch. I had to re-install *all* of them (that's on top of having had to re-install most of the applications i had on my phone memory and some of the applications i had on my memory card and that had disapeared).
Frankly, you really have to be a hardcore geek to put up with that.
I feel your pain, but I think your experience has been rather extreme. Applications installed on the internal disk are usually the only casualty, along with their data. In most case, it's easy enough to re-install them and then copy back their data files (or re-sync, in the case of Handy Safe).
Java's a menace and a law unto itself, of course, you're on your own there. The 'installing' message was possibly to do with a buggy sat-nav program installer?
So, I agree that Nokia could do better here - I guess they're conscious of not trying to restore the sys folder so that old config files don't interfere with the (potentially dramatically new) OS version.
A tough call all round!
Steve Litchfield