Last month we reported that Nokia was going to issues a pair of software updates to address the battery life issues that some Lumia 800 users were experiencing. Now when we reviewed the device we didn’t experience such issues, but there are plenty of people who have spoken out in Nokia’s support forum, claiming that they can’t make it more than 12 hours without needing to recharge their device. Today we’re pleased to report that Nokia just issued the first of those two updates; full changelog below:
Software Version: 1600.2479.7740.11451
Charging improvements
Voicemail notification improvement
Replying to mail improved for Microsoft Exchange 2003 users
Improved audio quality
Fixed screen issue after calls in bright light
To install this you need to use a computer running Windows and the Microsoft Zune PC application. That’s incredibly lame considering Android and Symbian devices update over the air, and even Apple recently added that ability to the latest version of iOS, but hey, Windows Phone is the an extremely young operating system, so we’re pretty sure that the OTA feature is something that the folks in Redmond, Washington are working on.
If you’re one of the people who has had issues with their Lumia 800, and have installed this update, do let us know if it fixes things. When iPhone 4/4S users started having battery issues with iOS 5, Apple released iOS 5.0.1 thinking they’d make everyone happy. Turns out that while some folks got better battery life, others didn’t. Worst of all some people who never had issues in the first place started experiencing problems!
Getting these things right isn’t particularly easy, and it doesn’t help that we want faster phones that do more things every 6 months. This writer’s solution is to carry a Nokia feature phone around that goes for over a week without needing a charge. It’s inelegant to say the least, but it works.