N95 8GB Updated, Still No Love for North America.

In case you’ve somehow missed it everywhere else yesterday, there’s more fantastic news for N95 owners- well, at least for the ones without US North American 3G frequencies… yet again. The 8GB variant has seen another tremendous update to v15.0.015, this time including full-on YouTube and other similar flash embedded content in the native browser. The Web Run Time is also bundled in this update, enabling the new widget platform from Nokia. Further speed boosts have also been cited.

Steve Litchfield was apparently first to grab the story early yesterday morning, and has a good deal of information for any N95 8GB users interested in hearing more- you’ll definitely want to hop over to All About Symbian for a load of images and a decent bit of discussion on the update if you haven't come across it yet.

Fantastic news right? Not exactly... click through and read why I'm not entirely thrilled with the news, and why I might have been screaming at my monitor in lieu of a representative from the Nokia firmware team yesterday.

While this is a very exciting update for owners of the 8GB model, as a US North American N95 user- I can’t help but feel even more slighted than I did four weeks ago when the non-update to v11 hit the US shores on the N95-3. It’s fantastic that Nokia keeps supporting the N95 line- the latest update for the classic N95 was monumental. All the benefits of demand paging make the N95-1 a completely different device than it started its life as- faster camera loading time, faster image processing, a wicked fast gallery- and of course, vastly improved memory management that makes multitasking a reality. The US North American variant was updated several weeks later- though this update did not include such goodies as demand paging, Search 4.0 in the active standby menu, podcasting integrated with the music player (or the podcasting app at all for that matter) and any of the other features introduced to the device line with the N95 8GB or the classic model. Now- as if the 8GB wasn’t already leaps and bounds above the performance over the US North American variant, it’s seen yet another massive update with the much anticipated YouTube support courtesy of flashlite 3.0.

So my juvenile feelings of being personal smote aside, it’s time to get your .sis files rounded up and backup your N95 if you haven’t already loaded the update yet. Unlike the last latest N95-3 update, this one is one you won’t want to miss out on.

But if you'll allow me to return to those juvenile thoughts once more- Please, PLEASE someone tell me when my N95-3 is going to see a real update. In all fairness- there are so many iterations of the N95 now... perhaps Nokia just forgot about this one? Those neglected loyal early adopting N95 users that chose to shell out another couple hundred dollars after unloading a device without US North American 3G to upgrade their devices can only feel even more neglected this week. That just doesn't sit right with me.... still.

Comments (3)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by Tommie, January 04, 2008

I agree with you but how come 3G frequencies in US are so bad outbuilt ? Thats a big qweston for the operators like AT&T why they not commit oneself to providing more activities to the 3G net?
Like here in Nordic regions and rest of Europe you have 3G almost evrywhere.
Are they wait for LTE-net (4G) or ? http://www.intomobile.com/2008...rmany.html

about N95-3update I hope it will be soon...

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

It's not "US" version
written by davidm, January 04, 2008

It''s "North American" version.

Those of us in the larger, but lesser populated part of North America kinda resent that, and it makes support from sales drones more difficult when you classify it as "US."

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by PseudoFinn, January 04, 2008

Sorry- didn't mean anything by it. I wasn't sure if even Canadian networks supported the N95-3 WCDMA frequencies...

For the record, I do shamefully interchange North America and US variant when speaking about the N95-3- but in all fairness, so does Nokia themselves.

No offense should be taken. I will no longer refer to the N95-3 as the US variant.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +1

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment