Continue reading »]]> It seems that HTC is prepping it self for the new Windows Phone 7 Tango update which is due out in a few months (From news around the Internet along with the newly approaching Lumia 900) with a small firmware update hitting unlocked devices recently.

HTC HD7 Update Available

With Tango only around the corner and the HTC HD7 already having Internet Sharing there is no additional features due to hit the HTC HD7 soon, which leads to a good indication that this is purely a back-ground update with no noticeable features added.

HTC Update Available

The major changes to note are as follows :

• OS Version : 7.10.8107.79
• Firmware Revision Number : 2250.21.51101.707 -> 2250.21.51201.707
• Radio Software Version : 5.71.09.02a_22.51.50.21U -> 5.71.09.02a_22.51.21U
• Bootloader Version : 5.11.2250.0(134400) -> 5.12.2250.0(139198)

HD7 PreFirmware Update

HD7 Post Firmware Update

As detailed above, the update seems to be only back ground fix’s as there is no new OS updates and no major functionality added to the phone post update. This is likely a pre-tango update which is being rolled out to the new Lumia 900 phones hitting the UK currently. This could hopefully mean that Tango is only around the corner with the possibility of it going live over the next month.

Again we play the waiting game for the next major WP7 upgrade Tango (or WP7.5 Refresh), which I’m not expecting Microsoft to update the lack on contextual search in WP7 devices, as it was pre-Mango, but one can dream.

This update brings my fleet of WP7 devices as below,

Unlocked HTC HD7

Current Software installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51101.707

Vodafone Nokia Lumia800

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : No
Firmware : 1600.2489.8107.12072

Optus Samsung Omnia 7 {Under Repair}

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Vodafone HTC Trophy 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51201.178

Sucsess!

Continue reading »]]> Since the halting of the 12070 Battery update in early April it has been a few weeks of Lumia users being hit with poor battery performance dragging on for most of April which as of today is now a thing of the past.

Lumia 800 Update Available

Officially approved April 25th over at the Vodafone Update Blog the Lumia 800 on Vodafone has now officially started to appear on handsets to resolve the dreaded battery bug, which has been effecting my Nokia Lumia 800,

Zune Update Detected

The full change log for 12072 advised by Vodafone includes Better battery performance, Camera automatically detects 50/60Hz to remove flicker in stills and videos, Updated camera settings and Improved charger detection.

• OS Version : 7.10.8107.79
• Hardware Revision Number : 112.1402.2.4
• Firmware Revision Number : 1600.2489.8107.12072
• Radio Software Version : 1.6.00.24
• Radio Hardware Version : 8255
• Bootloader Version : 7.35.0.0
• Chip SOC Version : 0.74.21
• File Size : 38MB

Lumia 800 Stock

Lumia 800 12072 Update

The changes pushed out in this update are :

OS Version :7.10.8107.79

Firmware Revision Number : 1600.2483.8107.11501 -> 1600.2489.8107.12072

Radio Software Version Number : 1.6.00.24

Bootloader Version : 7.35.0.0

This update brings my fleet of WP7 devices as below,

Vodafone Nokia Lumia800

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : No
Firmware : 1600.2489.8107.12072

Optus Samsung Omnia 7 {Under Repair}

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Vodafone HTC Trophy 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51201.178

Optus Samsung Omnia 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Unlocked HTC HD7

Current Software installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51101.707

Continue reading »]]> With the new Nokia Lumia still suffering from known battery and camera issues as well as a number of other known bugs, it appears that Vodafone has been the first vendor to release the much needed fix for the Lumia 800.

Originally announced back in Vodafones March 14th Software Update post, Nokia was officially “ preparing update for submission”, which translated means “Nokia said there is an update, we will review and let you know how things go”.

The Nokia update was processed through its normal Vodafone Update Schedule hitting testing stage the next week and labled as “Approved by Vodafone. Pending roll-out by manufacturer”.

Update : It appear that now Vodafone AU has Halted this update due to a bug in the Nokia Lumia firmware patch which claims to cause “the volume of music playback may behave erratically leading to the volume exceeding allowable levels on the device”. So it appears we are back to playing the waiting game…

A few good weeks had passed since the original announcement of the update bring ‘prepared’ for the Vodafone locked handsets, when on April 2nd team Vodafone officially announced on their blog that the new Firmware 12070 update had now been approved with updates being pushed out this week. This puts the Lumia 800 update in a time frame of approximately 3 weeks from “here you go” to “there you go”

Vodafones official details on the patch are as listed

• OS Version : 7.10.8107.79
• Hardware Revision Number : 112.1402.2.4
• Firmware Revision Number : 1600.2487.8107.12070
• Radio Software Version : 1.6.00.24
• Radio Hardware Version : 8255
• Bootloader Version : 7.35.0.0
• Chip SOC Version : 0.74.21
• File Size : 38MB

This makes Vodafone again one of the first (Excluding Telstra who launched with this firmware) Australian carriers to release this firmware update across its fleet with no word from Optus as to the status of their update. Although suffering form a lot of network related issues Vodafone has proven to be one of the preferred vendors with regards to the efficient release of their software updates.

Nokia Software Availability

Nokia Software Update Availability

Although Vodafone stated that “Nokia have advised that the update will begin rolling-out over this week“, it appears that Nokia might have forgotten to tell their own internal teams of the update being approved. Over at the Software Availability Information page setup by Nokia, it appears that Vodafone is still listed as “Waiting for approval”, which we know from the posts on the official Vodafone Blog is not true.

Update Availability "Carrier section"

I can confirm at time of writing there is no update listed on my Vodafone branded handset, but it is still early in the week which the update was scheduled to be pushed out.

Continue reading »]]> It has been some time since Nokia has been making any major name for it self in the smart phone market since the release of its N9 Nokia has been somewat of a sleeping giant. With the major partnership of Microsoft and Nokia we are starting to see high quality handsets hitting the AUS market.

Lumia 800 Box Shot

The Phone

Nokia officlly launched its Lumia 800 series in Australia on March 1st fom Optus, Vodafone and Telstra with its Cyan, Black and Pink models followed weeks later by its While Glossy partner.

News on the features and details of the Lumia have been done to death since its offical launch in AUS last month and from its US launch earlier this year so the following is a few of the key things to note about the Lumia 800.

• Display Size : 3.7″ Gorilla Glass ClearBlack AMOLED display
• CPU : Single Core Qualcomm 1.4GHz
• Storage : 16GB
• RAM : 512MB
• Battery : 1450mAh
• Camera : Rear 8MP Carl Zeiss Optics (No FFC)
• GSM : 850/900/1800/1900
• WCDMA (3G) : RM-801 (Optus/Virgin) 900/1900/2100
• WCDMA (3G) : RM-819 (Telstra/Vodafone) 850/1900/2100

Currently, in the Aus market, this lattest release phone from Nokia puts it as the most feature rich phone available.

The Delema

As mentioned in the above specs, we have been faced with one small minor issue when hunting for your next Lumia 800 series phone. Due to the carrier split we have in Australia (Which for people who do not follow Mobiles closely, we have Telstra and Vodafone who utalise the 850Mhz spectram and Optus and Virgin who use the 900 Mhz spectram), Nokia has been “kind” enough to split the options into 2 phone models.

Making the selection for some users will be easy as each carrier will be stocking its relevent model, it does however leave an  issue for anyone who is purchasing their new Lumia 800 outright. Due to the major split in the telcos, it does mean that users will be restricted to selected carriers when choosing their phones.  forcing users to ensure they are

The Upgrade

Since last year I have been able to enjoy the wonders of WP7 going from my HTC HD2 running custom ROMS, upgrading to its WP7 brother the HD7 later that year. As detailed back when I upgraded to my HTC HD7 the phone suited my needs and network with no issues (Running on the Optus/Virgin 900 network). As with the WP it self, alot has happened since then, I’m now running on the Vodafone network which sadly requires a 850 phone to fully benifit from its new 3G network.

The benifit of the new Lumia series launching in Aus did allow for a new line of 850 phone hitting the shores, but it also meant I have to now be more careful when purchasing imported phones as the 850 Mhz phones tend to attrach a higher price point. Lucky for me I was able to aquire a new Vodafone 850Mhz Lumia 800 at a bargin price.

Over the next few days i will be posting some overview, basic unboxing (as there is already 100s of them out there), my personal experiance going from a 4.3″ HD7 to a Lumia 800 and lots more.

Its been quite for a bit but lots of good things to come this month!

Continue reading »]]> As with Samsung recently releasing their Firmware upgrades for the Omnia 7, it is HTC’s turn not to start rolling out their firmware to squash a peskey bug plauging HTC Trophy owners after the 8107 update.

Update for HTC Trophy

As reported priviously, there was a major issue for some regarding the Gen 1 Flag ship of HTC, the HD7 , which on reboot caused the unit to be issued with a randomly generated MAC address. The issue may sound very minor but some some (My self for example) it caused a lot of issues for MAC filtered WiFi’s.

Unlike the HD7 , the Trophy maintained un-effected after the Mango and 7740 updates, however when the HD7 was patched in 8107, the Trophy recived the buggy firmware which was plagueing the HD7 during the Mango stages.

After confiming the bug was “known” and a fix was being implemented Vodafone (the Aussie carrier who released the HTC Trophy in AUS) advised that a fix would need to be issued by HTC as its a “Software Related Bug“ (Understandable as a carrier cant do anything apart from approve and push out updates).

Kudos and well done should be put to HTC and Vodafone for sorting out this fix promptly and efficently. WIthin a few weeks Vodafone was able to announce that all HTC Trophy devices on the Vodafone network should now be reciivng the new firmware to resolve this issue.

Trophy Pre Update

Trophy Post Update

The changes pushed out in this update are :

OS Version :7.10.8107.79
Firmware Revision Number : 2250.21.51001.178 -> 2250.21.51201.178
Radio Software Version Number : 5.69.09.05a_22.50.50.21U
Bootloader Version : 5.10.2250.1(131801) -> 2.12.2250.1(135657)

This update brings my fleet of WP7 devices as below,

Vodafone HTC Trophy 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51201.178  

Optus Samsung Omnia 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Unlocked HTC HD7

Current Software installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51101.707

Continue reading »]]> OEM’s have been pushing out the next wave of Firmware upgrades to Gen 1 handsets recently with the Optus Samsung Omnia 7 being one of the lucky ones to receive a firmware upgrade.

Omnia 7 Update Notification

It has been a long time coming for the Samsung Omnia 7 to be hit with a firmware update to fix a few ongoing issues it has suffered in the community. Being hailed as one of the “must have W7 devices” from Gen 1 its good to see there’s still some love for the handsets.

Since Mango the Omnia 7 has been plagued by a known issue with its Blue-tooth connectivity ranging form limited to none altogether. Having a number of WP devices I know that each of them have had their fair share of issues, but the Omnia issue is by far the most severe with still no known fix/work-around.

The latest firmware upgrade brings the following changes to the Omnia 7

OS Version : 7.10.8107.79
Firmware Revision Number : 2424.11.9.2 -> 2424.11.11.2
Radio Software Version : 2424.11.9.1
Bootloader Version : 5.9.0.6 -> 5.11.1.8

Omnia 7 Pre Update

Omnia 7 Post Update

The latest firmware bring some minor changes to the Omnia 7 believed to bring better stability and performance to the phone and improved DLNA support for streaming media using the Omnia 7.

Sadly Omnia users out there, this did nothing to fix the problematic Blue-tooth issue. Soon I will be attempting to send my Omnia 7 to the Samsung shop for repair in an attempt to resolve this issue until my contact is up for Renewal.

This update brings my fleet of WP7 devices as below,

Optus Samsung Omnia 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.8107.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Unlocked HTC HD7

Current Software installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51101.707

Vodafone HTC Trophy 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51001.178

Continue reading »]]> It seems the guys at HTC were sitting in wait for the 8107 patch form Microsoft to roll a few hardware fix’s of their own into the mix to fix a few issued plaguing their 4.3″ HD7.

Recently after getting in contact with HTC it was confirmed they were working on a fix for the MAC address found in bootloader “5.10.2250.0(132968)” and with the recent 8107 patch also came the bootloader “5.11.2250.0(13440)”

HD7 Pre 8107 Update

HD7 Post 8107 Update

This is great news for HD7 owners who have been suffering from this issue for some time ( i know i have been having alot of problems with my home WiFi when rebooting the handset) and based on my WiFi security access list, my HD7 has now been reset back to its stock MAC address.

It is one thing to also not regarding this patch that the Firmware in this update has also been upgraded from 2250.21.51002.707 -> 2250.21.51101.707

Continue reading »]]> Its been a almost a month now since Microsoft announced the patch 8107 which fix’s a number of key issues in Windows Phone 7, but the time had finally come for the lucky unbranded device holders to start getting their update!!

Early January Microsoft announced the fix for the dreaded Disappearing Keyboard bug which has faced almost every WP7 user (Even if they didn’t know it was a bug and simply thought they had tapped the back button).

HD7 Displaying Update Notification

Along with the disappearing keyboard there is a wealth of other fix’s with this patch (As well as the deadly SMS/Messaging bug which can cause a WP7 device to reboot when accessing the messaging Hub).
Some of the Fix’s include :

• Gmail sync issue
• Location Access issue (Known for sending location data to Microsoft when accessing the Me tile without approval)
• Digital Certificate issues
• Fix for Exchange 2003 (This is the 2nd fix for Exchange since Mango)
• Voice Mail notification issues

This patch, although not listed on the official change log, is said to bring Automatic Carrier Time syncing and the ability to toggle between 3G and Standard EDGE/GPRS. Few will find little to no use in these features but the carrier time sync for me seems to be a great bonus, where others who wish to spare the extra time on their battery.

Zune Update Available

HD7 8107.79 Change Log

So for all my fellow unbranded users out there, I would recommend checking if your device has started receiving the update as the onscreen notification can sometimes be a bit slow to register the new version.

Sadly for all my fellow Aussies (Telstra specifically who might still be on hold for 7740 update) it appears that a few more weeks on hold are expected. Currently none of my Vodafone HTC Mozart and Optus Samsung Omnia 7 have receive any update notifications.

HD7 Pre 8107 Update

HD7 Post 8107 Update

Currently my fleet of WP7 devices appear as below,

Unlocked HTC HD7

Current Software installed : 7.10.8107.79
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51101.707

This has been the first phone in my fleet to receive any and almost all of the updates (It took some time before the Internet Sharing update was pushed through compared to the Optus Omnia)

Optus Samsung Omnia 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Vodafone HTC Trophy 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51001.178

Continue reading »]]> Its been a few months now since the launch of Mango and Internet Sharing on the HTC HD7. For some users each upgrade has been a blessing bringing a wealth of new features and greater functionality to their HD7′s… However, it has not been as smooth upgrade for all.

HTC have confirmed a known bug with selected HD7 models running Mango and Bootloader 5.10.2250.0 which causes the HD7 on both reset and reboot to randomly change the MAC address of the phone. This little bug essentially gives a HD& owner a very un-blockable phone MAC address. This means a normally fixed value for the phone is now a forever changing value issued each reboot or reset.

For some this may sound like a bug which wont worry a lot of users but, adding in a WiFi router with MAC filtering and you see my problem. The major benefit about this bug is WP7 and its great reliability means that the only time I find my self rebooting the handset is in the hopes of fixing a poor signal from Vodafone. With that though it does still leave the issue out there that could effect users who work in a corporate environment with higher level filtering on their company WiFi network.

HD7 ABout Screen Post Update

My official reach out to HTC was sadly greeted with no major confirmation that a solution was in the works and when the ETA for the patch is scheduled for.

Thank you for your reply.
We found an issue about WP7.5(Mango) for changing Mac Address for every reset and reboot after update of bootloader 5.10.2250.0 We are collection customers’ information with the phone issue and if there any update for ite, we will inform to let you know. Thanks.
Best Regards

My HD7 was acquired from Ebay for a bargain price with its original location coming from Singapore (So HTC AUS have told me) which mean’s any updates which get pushed for the Singapore HD7 will be slightly different when compared to the local HD7 in AUS supplied by Telstra. The benefits of this is I have no carrier hanging over my head when it comes to pending updates, the negative is I receive the problem before there is a fix available (Which could explain the delay in updates for Telstra’s HD7?)

I will keep at HTC until I get the date they expect to have this issue fixed.

Continue reading »]]> Recently Microsoft has announced that WP7 version 7.10.8107  would start pushing out to carriers for testing which means its possible we should be getting out fix for the vanishing keyboard bug in the coming months.

As good as this news it, its a shame to also know that Vodafone has only just started getting 7740 update pushed out to the HTC Trophy only a recently. It does mean that a lot of WP7 users may still be left out for a few more months until we see this critical fix hit their devices.

Update for HTC Trophy

Update for HTC Trophy

Currently I have 3 WP7′s from 3 separate sources which does allow me to have a good comparison between how AUS is faring between each carrier vs unlocked handsets.

Unlocked HTC HD7

Current Software installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51002.707

This has been the first phone in my fleet to receive any and almost all of the updates (It took some time before the Internet Sharing update was pushed through compared to the Optus Omnia)

Optus Samsung Omnia 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2424.11.9.2

Being on a network with 2 WP7  powered devices, these units have had some extra love put towards them as well as being the first device to offer Internet Sharing compared to the HTC handsets (However the unit does suffer for MAJOR blue-tooth issues since the Mango upgrade)

Vodafone HTC Trophy 7

Current Software Installed : 7.10.7740.16
Internet Sharing Enabled : Yes
Firmware : 2250.21.51001.178

Bring the only WP7 powered device on the Vodafone network it can sometimes leave this phone left on the side line. Hopefully with Nokia about to release its Lumnia series (Which is currently on the Vodafone UK website) it will bring a few more WP& handsets into the mix