Last week Nokia released 3 key new firmwares.  Firstly, the Nokia E71 (and I suspect the Nokia E66 and Nokia E63, as they seem to share a common base and seem to get updates at the same time) was updated to v500, although at the time of writing, this was not yet available for either the generic EURO1 codes nor the operator branded versions in the UK, but hopefully it will become available over the coming weeks.

v500 contains the following updates:

• Maps v3.03 Lite which has Free Navigation support
• Music Player upgrade
• Quick Office v6.2 which has Office 2007 support
• Ovi Store upgraded to 1.6.0.18 and Download! Removed
• Ovi Suite included in Memory card
• Functionality improvements in E-mail configuration
• Qwerty keypad improvements
• Emergency call termination with RSK key corrected
• Corrected Bluetooth link drop when an outgoing call is made in a carkit
• Corrected localization issues in world clock
• Fix provided for selecting desired mailbox when multiple mailboxes are configured

Probably more important is the Nokia N97 firmware update to v22, and the Nokia N97 Mini firmware update to v12.  Given the Nokia N97 is always accused of not having enough memory and space on the internal C: drive, then having to install Ovi Maps (over 10MB) to that area is always a burden. Well, this new firmware at least includes v3.03 Ovi Maps within the firmware, removing the need to have that additional 10MB application install (although we note that v3.04 is now out with the added cell ID and Wi-Fi based positioning, so without using a third party app such as Maps Booster, there is still, ironically, a need to install Ovi Maps in addition to the version in firmware for some of us).

The other new features include:

• Ovi Maps v3.03 with free Navigation built-in
• Nokia Messaging stub built-in
• Default screen brightness raised to 75%
• Default theme now the jet black ‘Nseries 2′, giving longer battery life than the previous ‘Nseries 3′
• RAM optimisations
• Miscellaneous bug fixes, including “Default Nokia tune is played as ringing tone for incoming calls instead of the one user has defined in Profile settings. Also sometimes device has stopped alerting for incoming calls. Both issues are now fixed” which has plagued a good few users.

As with all firmwares, you will need to decide between the impact of applying a new firmware (and the need to wipe the phone and start again with all your contacts, bookmarks, application and settings) against the fixes provided by the new firmware.  As always, expect to wait longer (and potentially forever) for operator branded versions to arrive; for example a 3UK Nokia E71 is still on v300, having never released v400 (or v410) for their devices, so the chance of v500 being released is quite small (it’s not all 3UK; an Orange N97 will still be stuck on v10, as they have never released v11, v20 or v21, let alone the new v22).

Nokia E71 firmware information courtesy of Symbian World, Nokia N97 Firmware information courtesy of All About Symbian.

3UK have updated their selection of refurbished handsets that are available for purchase.  The current range includes (of note):

• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
• Nokia 5230 (although announced, it was not available on the website at the time of writing)
• Nokia E71
• HTC Hero

In my opinion these are all good phones (although in different ways), and if you don’t need the latest greatest device, but are looking for something cheap, then you might well want to consider one of these devices.  Although they are generally available with a new contract, some are available on PAYG, such as:

• HTC Hero £169.99
• Nokia E71 £139.99
• Nokia 5800 £109.99

These are also very good value options for someone who has a simpler phone today and is looking for something a bit more special.  Don’t forget you really need an Internet connection to get the most out of these phones, especially the HTC Hero.

This week Socially App have released v1.40 of their Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIN client, and added the following features:

• Ability to geotweet (ie include your location within a twitter message), although you do need to enable this within your twitter account too before it will be visible to others.
• Ability to search on twitter limiting the search to “nearby” people.
• Ability to define the preferred WiFi and Data access point to use; the app will use WiFi whenever within range, but will then use the GPRS / 3G network when necessary.

I’m really impressed with Socially App, especially as it’s free.  Whereas Gravity is still struggling to implement full GPS access under S60 3rd Edition FP1 (think Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia E71), Socially App has managed it just fine (I should add Gravity also supports the use of the Google Maps API to locate you via WiFi or cell ID, so still offers location services on FP1), and I really like the way that when you want to see your current position, Socially App fires up the local Ovi Maps to show you where you are (see below); it would be nice, in time, to see even more use of Ovi Maps integrated into the application.

As before, Socially App can be downloaded direct on your phone from their website at m.sociallyapp.com

Yesterday 3UK launched an updated website.  Although this new site has received mixed comments with some people liking it, and others not, there are a couple of things to be said about it.  Firstly, 3UK have kept all the information you need handy, such as coverage checkers.  Secondly, and this won’t be obvious from the site, but internally within the company there were champions requesting (and ultimately succeeding) that the website was not Flash based (and with it the potential to not allow direct links to product pages).  Overall, I’ve had a few visits to the website, and I’m happy with the redesign.

However…

At the same time, 3UK have removed the Mix and Match tariffs and removed the Texter tariffs (and the old Internet Texter tariffs). Now, there is 3 choices:

• SIM Only remains, offering a 1 month rolling contract for those who already have a phone, or are happy to buy PAYG phones to use with the service.
• Internet Talker tariffs, all 24 month contracts, all include “unlimited” 500MB Internet, and the standard range of free facilities (Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Twitter) and “unlimited” 3000 3UK-3UK minutes per month.  4 tariffs are available, called 100, 300, 500 and 900, which denotes the number of cross network minutes or texts per month available.
• For an additional £3 or £5 per month (depending on tariff), there are 4 Internet Texter tariffs, which offer the same 100, 300, 500 or 900 cross network minutes per month, but also come with “unlimited” Internet (*), and “unlimited” 3000 texts.

(*) It seems there is an inconsistency on the 3UK website; although both the Internet Texter and Internet Talker tariffs have a headline of “unlimited internet”, when you look at the detail the Internet Texter tariffs are shown as “unlimited internet”, whereas the Internet Talker tariff are shown as “500MB data”.  This either means 3UK has dropped it’s “unlimited” cap from 1Gb to 500MB, or there is a difference between these 2 tariffs of an additional 500MB.  Either way, some clarify is definitely required over how much internet is or isn’t included with these tariffs, and equally why has the limit dropped…

So, if you were after something like a Nokia 6700 Slide, to get it with 300 cross network minutes (24 month contract) will cost you:

• Internet Talker 300: £10 per month
• Handset: £6 per month

therefore a total of £16 per month.  To add those “unlimited” 3000 texts as well would cost an additional £5 per month, so the Handset with the Internet Texter 300 tariff would be £21 per month.

On one hand, I have to offer 3UK the greatest support for taking the initiative and including Internet access with every tariff (apart from SIM only), and that can be as little as £10 per month (it looks like this was the plan 3UK were talking to me about a month or so back), however, on the other hand, making all contracts 24 months may backfire for the many people who don’t want to be tied in for that long. I’m also not happy with the lack of clarity over what “unlimited” internet means, and why it’s now dropped from the old 1GB limit to the new 500MB limit (in fact, you’ll actually get your first warning at 400MB, whereas with the old limits your first warning was when you hit 1GB, and you could actually keep going for some while before being charged).

Having said all that; looking at the Internet Talker 300 tariff, it means you could have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for £10 per month (24 month contract) a Nokia E71 (Refurbished) for £13 per month (24 month contract), or if you fancy Android an HTC Hero for £19 per month (24 month contract, 2 months Spotify Premium) or even the HTC Desire for £20 per month (24 month contract, 2 months Spotify Premium); that’s an impressive range of handsets at impressive prices as long as you can accept the 24 month contract, and are happy with the 500MB per month data limit.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the majority of the prices I have quoted regarding these new tariffs are the online prices, which have an online exclusive £2 per month reduction over store prices, so to get many of these deals, you will have to visit the 3Store as opposed to going to your local High Street.

In the last week or so, Nokia has released a fair few firmware updates.  As always, these updates generally only apply initially to the EURO generic models, and UK and UK mobile network operator specific firmwares will follow (with the latter taking the longest).  Some highlights of these firmware updates include:

• New firmware (v410) for the Nokia E71, Nokia E66 and Nokia E63
• Nokia E72 now at v31
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic at v50
• Nokia X6 moves to v20
• Nokia N86 8MP now at v30

Although the majority of these devices are S60 5th Edition or S60 3rd Edition FP2, there are a few S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices in there too, although we do wonder if this may be their last firmware update (technically there’s no reason why Nokia couldn’t continue producing new firmwares integrating updated software applications, but I do think they will start to dry up for FP1 devices soon).

Many of these particular firmwares do seem quite major updates, and should be worth the pain and hassle of applying to your device, although do remember it’s best to take a full backup of all your data before you start.

Firstly, the Good News! Nokia has this week released Ovi Maps v3.03 for the Nokia E71 and Nokia E66, allowing these two phones to be added to the original list of phones that now have Free Navigation.  Nokia also pointed out that the Nokia N86 has been added to the list too since the initial list was issued.

It should be pointed out that these two E-Series phones won’t have the Michelin or Lonely Planet guides available, but at least they now have free navigation, especially with the popularity of the Nokia E71 in the UK, this is a very sensible move by Nokia.

However, now for the Bad News Nokia also announced that these will be the last S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices that the new free navigation Ovi Maps will be released for; so if you have a Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, or a Nokia N82 etc. then based on this statement you won’t be seeing free navigation ever.

It’s nice to see Nokia respond to requests for the Nokia E71, and it’s a shame that we won’t be seeing more FP1 devices supported, but maybe, just maybe, 2010 is the year to move to a newer device…

A day or two ago, I got a nice SMS from 3UK:

From 3: On Apr 22 some prices change. You still get free texts, internet & 3-to-3 calls. New: free Twitter & 0.facebook.com

It finishes with a 3UK web page for more details.

Wow, I thought; 3UK are just making the existing free twitter browsing permanent, and adding support for the new 0.facebook.com website (which provides a mobile text only interface to Facebook; ie access to news and information, but no photos, keeping the data usage down); what a nice bunch of people, providing these extra services for all their customers.

However, curiosity got the better of me, so off I went to the website to see the finer details of the changes, and boy did I get a shock…

So, here are the full details of the PAYG changes coming next month:

• Voicemail is no longer free; it is now 15p/minute.
• Calls to landlines and Mobiles goes up from 20p/minute to 25p/minute.
• Sending a picture message goes up from 25p each to 30p each.
• Making International calls from the UK goes up roughly 5p/minute for the majority of countries.
• Making roaming calls whilst in some countries goes up 4p/minute (Band 0 countries).
• Receiving calls whilst roaming in some countries goes up 9p/minute (Band 1) or 25p/minute (Band 2).
• Calls to 084x and 087x numbers increase by 5p/minute, 5p/call, or both.
• Calls to 090x numbers increase too.

“Some prices change” really doesn’t seem to cover it, and I think 3UK should be making more of these changes before people wonder where all their credit has gone.

I do note that 3UK are promoting both Twitter and 0.facebook.com being free and don’t need a TopUp, which implies (maybe incorrectly), that these, like Skype and Windows Live Messenger, continue to work even if your credit runs out, which is one small positive to come out of all these changes.

In other news, Sylvia Chind has confirmed the following handset information (see here for full details):

• The Nokia E72 will be available in May, and is likely to be as much of a hit as the Nokia E71 has been.
• The Nokia N900 is not coming to 3UK, and nor is the HTC HD2.
• The Samsung Galaxy, Sony Ericsson X10 and HTC Desire are coming to 3UK (although we had already announced all those devices here at UK Gadgeteer)
• They are still hoping to bring the iPhone to 3UK, but it’s not here yet.

This is generally good news for 3UK in terms of their handsets, and it’s unfortunate it’s come at the same time as all these PAYG price increases, but for many 3UK customers, now might be the right time for a new phone, and a move to a contract to soften the impact of these PAYG price changes.

When I met up with 3UK last month, they were explaining that generally the main reason they take longer to get phones is that as a company they will purchase a much smaller quantity of any particular phone than the larger networks, and hence their requests for stock and customisations will always take second place.  They also commented that in terms of phones like the iPhone, they felt the costs were too high, both to them and to the consumer.  Well, I think this is about to change…

The day before I met 3UK I heard rumours that their Customer Services staff had been saying they would be carrying the iPhone within 3 months, and both that and a direct question on whether 3UK would be stocking the iPhone were, looking back, not actually answered on the night.

This week I’ve heard more Customer Services staff saying the iPhone will come next month (although personally I suspect it’ll be announced in the next month or so, as opposed to being on sale), and 3UK have put out a statement today saying that they don’t have a commercial relationship with Apple, but that they hope to resolve that in 2010.  That post also states that the Nokia E71 was their best selling phone of 2009, but what it doesn’t say is that the HTC Hero, costing £35 per month, is their current best selling phone.  This shows that buyers are willing to spend £35 per month on a 3UK contract, something that may not have been so apparent a year ago when PAYG and £15-£20 per month contracts were much more common.

Combine all these thoughts with statements by 3UK last month that they felt they should advertise their “Coming Soon” phones better and I think the iPhone is going to be announced fairly soon; in my opinion it’s rare for networks to talk about phones before they are pretty much ready.  With the experiences of the HTC Hero, 3UK know their customers will happily pay more for high spec smartphones, and with the comments from their own Customer Services staff I think this all shows it’s coming to the network.

Now, I might be wrong of course, and I suspect it’s possible they’ll only pick up the iPhone 3G, although I suspect they’ll be able to sell the iPhone 3GS too.  I also suspect that if / when a new iPhone 4th Generation model is announced in June / July, it won’t be seen on 3UK for a little longer than the other networks (due to the commercial points in the first paragraph), but we may well see some form of iPhone on sale on 3UK before too long.

Interestingly, unlike some Nokia phones, it appears that people aren’t having problems getting their 3UK SIMs to work in unlocked iPhones, so that bodes well.  Of course, I would expect 3UK to ship it with their own Skype on 3 and Email on 3 solution, which may take a little while to get ready and released into the App Store.  In fact, I wonder if this is the only thing stopping the announcement happening today, hence why 3UK are happy to start talking about the device…

Yes, finally, after all these years… Nokia (well Nokia Beta Labs) have released a Custom Dictionary Editor, which allows you to read, edit and delete the words in the customer dictionary on your phone.  Of course, as with all things Nokia, it’s not that simple, so read on before you head off to install the software…

Firstly, it’s mainly aimed at the latest phones, so devices like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia X6 are fine, and there’s a dedicated version for the Nokia E71 and Nokia E63 which works fine too, but most other devices will struggle in one way or another, and not have the full functionality, which includes…

• View all the words in your custom dictionary
• Add new words to it
• Edit and Delete existing words
• Export the dictionary as xml file
• Import words from an xml file
• Scan text files to import all the words
• Transfer your dictionary to another phone

Although many devices are generally supported (most S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices should be able to run the application, although most S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones will have limited functionality), the best support is limited to the 4 supported phones (even devices like the Nokia N97, Nokia E72 and Nokia E75 are listed as having “minor issues”).

This is a good forward step by Nokia though; many people, myself included, have been annoyed by the lack of edit capability of the dictionary over the years.  One useful piece of advice Nokia have now provided though; the dictionary is limited in size, and, once full, when it adds a word, it deletes the least used word from the dictionary.  This will explain for many why some words disappear over time.

As always, if you want to try it out, head over to the Nokia Beta Labs to see it, and the support for your phone.  Also, if you hadn’t visited the Nokia Beta Labs site recently, you’ll need a Nokia Account (you’ll already have one if you use the Ovi features) to download the application.

According to this website, v400 firmware for the Nokia E71 is just starting to become available, and the changelog includes:

NEW FUNTIONALITIES:
Gimlet v9.5 (v9.5.3.72)
Quick Office 5.3
Ovi Store 1.5 (v1.5.2)
Ovi Contacts – Preinstalled
Mail for Exchange 2.9.176

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS:
Email Setup Wizard update
WLAN Corrections
Internet Radio v1.16 – Increased functionality
Camera functionality improvement
Incoming call hang issue fixed
Turkish SMS character input improvement
Many functionality and Stability improvements in MfE
Support for Russian and Ukranian keymats
Phone activation Baseline updated
Yahoo account hack fixed

GENERAL
Stability and functionality improvements
Email and WLAN functionality improvements
Increased robustness in handling SMS and incoming calls
Memory leak fixes and crashes
Email and WLAN functionality improvements

CALL HANDLING
Fix for Incoming call hang issue and fast call crash
Fix for making emergency call when the phone is locked

CALENDAR/CLOCK
Minor Functionality improvements
Time display correction when the phone is locked

CONNECTIVITY
WLAN functionality Improvements and fixes for crashes
Improvement in WLAN authentication
mVPN authentication improvements and general functionality improvement

CONTACTS/PHONEBOOK
Functionality improvements for search functionality

EMAIL
Email setup wizard updated
Fix for Yahoo account hack while setting up Gmail account through Nokia Email
Fix for mails getting duplicated after restoring backup
Mail for Exchange upgraded from 2.9.158 to 2.9.176
Gimlet updated to v9.5
Many functionality and stability improvements in MfE
Robustness and functionality improvements in email items.

INTERNET RADIO
Improved functionality
Increased application stability

QWERTY KEYBOARD
Usability improvements
Keyboard mapping corrections for Russian and Ukranian keymat

MESSAGING
Improvement in Turkish SMS characters input
Fix for delivery report for SMS with more than 22 characters
Increased robustness in handling SMS

It’s nice to see Nokia not neglecting the elder phones!  Once this becomes available in the UK, don’t forget the Nokia E71 does not hae UDP (User Data Preservation), so it will wipe everything off the phone when you apply it.  Certainly with the memory leak fixes and the time display correction, this may be an update worth applying.  As always, the network operator branded firmware versions will take longer to be released.