Nokia N9 Update PR 1.3

PR1.3 Update for the Nokia N9

So today after rumours and some announcements on Twitter and then an official announcement on Nokia Support Discussions the latest and possibly last update for the Nokia N9 running Meego Harmattan became available and after checking my handset every 15 minutes all morning 03/07/2012 it finally showed up on my phone as an OTA update. I'm a geek and wanted it straight away, as everyone should, geek or not, keep your phone Firmware as fresh as you can whatever phone you are using on whatever Operating System. Now despite being advised by my Meego/N9 buddy @EverythingN9 on Twitter, that I could lose some of the hacks and apps I'd installed on the N9 I just had to get and Try PR 1.3 , so off I went, and as usual with me, I had a slight hickup !!

When I started the update, the phone was 'checking for space' for about 15 minutes and I thought there was an issue ? BIG mistake, I rebooted the N9 and had just a constant loop unable to do anything, before I panniced and cried for help I tried a 12 second power button hold and the phone restarted for a second time, all my settings had changed and my wallpaper had disappeared, but the phone was useable and I began the update again. So if you have yet to do the update, follow the advice as you should, connect via WiFi, plug in the charger and DON'T DO ANYTHING UNLESS PROMPTED !!

From this point all went well, if slowly, it's a big update 203.3MB and took about 40 minutes to download and install. Now I had overclocked my N9 as well as doing a few more tweeks with the help of the afore mentioned @EverythingN9 (Arie) so the phone was quite quick and not 'stock' and as you will see from my photos Arie was correct and certain apps would no longer work with PR 1.3, however once the update was completed I was not in the least concerned.The improvements in performance were more than noticeable, the whole thing was quicker and smoother, apps and web pages loaded quicker and an already pleasurable experience was, for me, suddenly even better, the work put in by the small Meego/N9 team at nokia had certainly paid off. There are few obvious changes and those that exist are subtle, but the overall performance is greatly improved. Little things like the Notification icons when you set the phone to silent or vibrate are good, the fact that the stock browser now has a back button is a nice touch and the biggest thing I've noticed is they have definitely put some work into the camera, the low light photos and macro have definitely improved. My house is very badly lit and prior to update indoor photos taken anywhere inside without being close to the window were very grainy, with both my N9 and Lumia 800, after update the N9 is MUCH better.

It really is too early to list all the improvements and I'm sure I'll discover more, but so far all is looking great, one slight disagreement is the email performance on the N9, which I've always found good. Another Twitter friend @Aliqudsi had complained about mail performance on his N9, and posted a video to demonstrate, now I have neither his skill or looks to be posting videos, but I tested my phone and the mail worked flawlessly so i took a sequence of screen shots to show the issue didn't exist on my phone, and I suspect it may be an issue specific with Ali's handset ?

Credit to @AliQudsi http://www.youtube.com/user/AliqudsiMobile whom I stole this from without permission !!

Anyway, that's enough waffling from me , I'll add a few photos and I'm done and off to see what else I can find on my N9 LOL

PS the Meego/Maemo community are already on the job and Inception has already been released for PR1.3 and I'm sure the hacking and tweaking will soon begin again !

Link for latest Inception https://endno.de/~itsnotabigtruck/inception/

Thankyou for reading this piece and I hope I'll update it and possibly do a short follow up with updates and maybe some better pictures to discover if the camera has improved as much as i suspect :)

Stephen Quin

03/07/2012