Rating: No Wi-fi tethering and Bluetooth auto-answer yet
In Europe, Nokia has been proudly boasting that has released the third software update for the Lumia 800 W7 Mango phone in only four months. There are plenty of disappointments, however. One of them will almost certainly focus around the fact that while Wi-fi tethering has been promised – it’s not available via this release (1600.2487.8107.12070). Also there appears to be no fix for the omission of auto-answering with Bluetooth headsets. Plus the software is going to be released in phases. So in the UK, for example, the first Lumia 800 owners to be able to receive the update will be on Vodafone, BT and certain 3 UK handsets. [We assume Nokia means 3 when it says H3G – Hutchison 3G.] It looks like some Lumia 800s purchased through retail will be able to receive the update as well.What this update does promise to deliver however is “significant improvements in battery performance and power management.”
The company claims in its Conversations by Nokia blog here that the average user should see between 25 to 30 hours of battery life with on a typical daily usage pattern.
It says that given the Lumia 800 sports a 1450 mAh battery, is now among the top performers in battery life for the key measures Nokia has concentrated on.
Interestingly, the original date scheduled for this update was April 18th [2012] and the first examples were released on 28th March [2012]. Expect further releases on April 4th, 11th and 18 [2012].
Now here’s the curious bit. These updates are being delivered via Microsoft’s desktop PC software. Zune (aka Windows Phone 7 Connector) on the Apple Mac.
Which is curious because there is very definitely an OTA (over-theair) upgrade capability built into W7 Mango. Go to ‘Settings’, and scroll down to ‘Phone update’ to see it.
However, since Nokia is concentrating on delivering these updates through Zune, notification that the new release has come out shouldn’t appear. You’ll have to try connecting you handset to Zune on the dates given above.
There’s absolutely no mention of it in the Conversations blog so Nokia doesn’t appear to have fixed a bug that GoMobile News has encountered.
When you pair a Bluetooth handset with the Lumia 800 certain functionality is provided. Bizarrely, if you have this W7 Mango phone configured to read out your received text messages – logical while you are travelling, the handset reads them to you via your headset.
However, despite searching everywhere for the setting – GoMobile News can find no way to force the handset to auto-answer incoming calls.
Which is curious because Microsoft claims that Windows Phone 7 supports all the kinds of Bluetooth profiles you’d expect to make auto-answer work.
There’s a list here which mentions Hands Free Profile (HFP 1.5) and Headset Profile (HSP 1.1).
In our humble opinion it can’t have implemented these profiles properly. Which goes back to our gripes with no Profiles with the Nokia Lumias story.
If you want to check whether your mobile operator in you particular geography has actually released the third update visit this site.
The latest update has made battery life much, much better.
Before the update, a 50% drop in life would happen by the middle of my work day, and by the end of the day the phone would be dead. Most of this was through playing games and listening to music on the train into the city.
Now, the 50% mark won’t hit until somewhere near the end of my work day, and will even last til early morning (4am ish), though I will charge it the night before simply so it doesn’t die out on the train commute.
The sound has more balls too.
Speaker conversations were very tinny and weak before. Now they are strong and clear, although I would still prefer just a smidgeon more bass, it is much better than pre-update.
Glad to hear you like the update, Jamie. The official benefits as given by Nokia are: Enhanced battery standby and talk-time performance; and improved bass in audio performance – which you’ve obviously spotted. The third benefit is a bug fix for a non-responsive screen when ending a call. Can’t say we’d noticed that happening but it is good news, nonetheless
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