My "new" Nokia N80

I was trying to look for the Nokia PC Suite download page when I see this.

Nokia - Phone software update

Phone Software Update? I know there must be some secret software updater for my a-little-bit-buggy Nokia N80, just behind the doors to the service room, but a updater that I can download and install on my own? That's completely new and I have never knew a phone company offering this kind of free updates. This is simply the reason why I liked Nokia - they pay attention to details. My heart to Nokia (before Apple's iPhone come out, that is).

Anyway, the installation was easy and quick. Nokia maintains a list of supported phones at their website. If I am not mistaken, most of the phone models in the list is running on a Symbian S60 operating system (ie. most of them starts with an "N" or "E"). After I install a updater to my computer, hook the computer up with the phone through the USB cable, and the software will detect the phone and download the required updates from Nokia. After that comes the most important part of flashing the internal memory of the phone to the new version (which is always the most dangerous part - a power failure and my phone will be on its way to one of the Nokia service centres.)

After restarts, my phone woke and it simply looked as if it was new. I spotted these changes,

1. Organisation of the main menu is different, now there is a new "Internet" folder holding all the internet-related applications.
2. Several references to an "internet phone" feature in settings menu as well as an app presumably used to make calls via the internet.
3. It seems the phone now supports Changjei input method but I don't know how I can get it to work (maybe with the Bluetooth keyboard?).
4. New applications to download free software from the Internet, including a new barcode reader, Yahoo! Messenger and Acrobat Reader etc.
5. After several seconds of inactivity the display dimmed (but the light isn't turned completely off). Nice.
6. The "Web" app (Webkit-powered browser, which in turn support the Safari on the Mac) can now handles web pages which demand more resources.

In a nutshell, all of them are tiny changes. But I am already thirlled.

PS: It turns out that the full backup utility is doing anything but a full backup. After I updated the phone and restore the backup, my message box and phone book was still empty. I synced my contacts back to the phone - no problem, but all my messages were lost.

So, before you install the new software, check Nokia discussion board for installation issues with your phone. Always make backup and make sure you can restore everything after the update.