Team-BHP - Nokia E90 FAQ's and Report.

New Firmware Update is finally done. Everthing seems to be ok. GPS is the only major improvement. Apart from that i really did not find any noticeble difference as of yet.
As for backup, I formated the phone before firmware upgrade. I will sync with my Outlook for the PIM and apps, I will be installing fresh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by netarchie (Post 621793)

Thats good news. Maybe I would update mine tomorrow.
What is the improvement in the GPS.
Does is lock on quicker?

Quote:

Originally Posted by harjeev (Post 621859)

Thats good news. Maybe I would update mine tomorrow.
What is the improvement in the GPS.
Does is lock on quicker?

I heard the Assisted GPS will now also use the Data Connection to help get a real fast lock on the satellites. Apparently you get a lock in 20 secs (max) now.

@Netarchie do let us know if this is the case with your phone too. And thanks for the info about your FW update :)

Ya..it locks a lot quicker.. Just to cite an example..with the previous version of firmware..if i wanted to test an gps app , it used to take atleast 7 - 8 minutes, If i was lucky, to get a fix ..sometimes longer too., if i held it near my window. Now with the new firmware upgrade , i got my first fix in flat 40 seconds (I timed it) from the same place (near the window).

I updated my E90 firmware earlier this week.
Like netarchie said the major improvement is the lock on time for the GPS. Rest everything seems the same.
Another thing that I have noticed is that when the backlight on the inside screen switches off is switches off with a slight smooth delay and not abruptly. I dont know whether this was there earlier or not !

Rest everything was smooth. No issues with the backup and restore of the complete backup too.

I'd forgotten to post this earlier.

Be careful about putting anything with magnets near the E90. I'd bought an Organizer with a magnetic closer-clasp, and walked a while with the phone on the organizer, just above the clasp. (The E90 was in the leather-slip-case that came with it). What happened is, that the magnet switched off the external screen and the external keypad!

Apparently the transfer of focus between the internal and external screen (and keyboards) takes place through some magnetic switch inside the flip of the phone. When we open the phone the magnet-switch detects the open flip and transfers focus to the internal screen.

Any strong-enough magnetic field from outside interferes with this process. That is how my external screen (and keypad) switched off.

What made things worse is that the phone was locked, and the locked state remained even when the flip was opened. Without a way of unlocking the phone from the internal keyboard, the phone was truly "locked".

After a bit of googling and forum-trawling and I knew this was a known issue. I also got the fix (thank god for the Internet).

I passed the same magnet over the phone again. This caused the internal screen to shut off and the external screen & keyboard to be activated. And everything was back to normal.

So it would be a good idea to not use even a belt case with a magnet closer strap. The problem area is in the side of the phone near the hinges.

I just bought Epocware's HandyCalendar for the E90. Excellent bit of SW. It uses the database of the Symbian Built-in Calendar, but adds a WHOLE LOT of usability. It lets us keep the Today screen plugin active also.

It works perfectly with the internal screen and makes very good use of the entire internal screen's real-estate.

I've just started using this SW now, but it is worth the money for sure. It is as good as the 9500's excellent calendar app. Lots and lots of additional functionality gets added.
- Notes can be attached to all types of entries.
- Alarms can be easily added to all types of entries.
- Editing the enrties is much much better an intuitive.
- Contacts can be easily integrated with the calendar.
- If we use Epocware's HandyProfiles, it will integrate with the Calendar, and the phone-profiles can be automatically managed based on the calendar entries (auto-switch to Meeting mode or Silent mode or a custom profile etc based on the calendar entry and time of the entry).
- "Busyness" indicator bar in colour, showing what times you are busy on a particular day.
- Etc, etc. Lots more.

They have a 50% discount going now, so I got this 40$ app for 20$. I test-drove it for 3 days and knew this was the One :D I tries SBSH's Papyrus also, but IMHO Handy Calendar is much superior.

I love the holiday season! Perfect time for picking-up good SW for less :)

I just bought 4 software apps for my E90. These apps are available for all S30 3rd edition phones. They work just great in the internal screen of the E90 also.

1) Epocware's HandySafe: A nice, secure wallet-like program to store sensitive data securely.

2) Epocware's HandyTaskMan: A great way to control all the SW installed on your phone (including the default software). It works like the Symbian taskswitcher, except this one has more. We can start/access any SW installed on the phone by typing in the first few chars of the SW's name. No moving around the menu icons and clicking thru folders. This also displays the memory status (RAM & Phone Memory), and how much memory each app uses up.

3) Resco PhotoViewer: I used to use this with my PPC phone and it was hands down the best image viewer I'd used. The SYmbian version has most of the same stuff, but not all. But it is 100 times better than the defauly Symbian "Gallery".

4) Resco News: A really good RSS aggregator. I'd been looking for one app like this for a while, and the Resco News SW does all I want. Small, fast app (Can't say that for most RSS readers).

All this stuff came with "seasonal" discounts, open till the end of the year. I love discounts for SW.

BTW, Handango gave away the app I'd mentioned in my previous post (Handy Calendar) for FREE (!!!) today (Friday in the US), for one full day :(

And am I the only guy reading/posting on this thread?

Hey, thanks guys! That was said jokingly in part, but well... :)

Looking for a 6GB/8GB MicroSD now. I'll upgrade the FW as soon as I get one.

The reason I'm waiting for a 6GB/8GB card is that I'll be reinstalling everything afresh anyway after the upgrade, so I'd rather install most of the apps to the card, and keep it in the phone for all time. I'm using two 2GB microSDs now, with all apps installed to phone memory, so that switching the cards will not compromise functionality.

I got this nice, small and fast (and yes, FREE) Screenshot utility the other day: Screenshot 2.

It works with all Symbian S60 phones, and works like a charm with the E90. Very nifty for grabbing some info off the net when you don't want to type it into the notepad separately, or when you don't want to write it down (we still can't copy stuff off a webpage, pity). (And yes, I'm laaaaazy). Now all I need is an OCR utility for Symbian that reads the data off the screenshot to text :D

The utility takes a screenshot of whatever is displayed on the screen when you press the "Edit" + "OK" key. (That is, the "Shift" + D-Pad "Enter" on the internal screen of the E90). It shoots to JPEG. We can adjust the quality and size of the file across 3 levels.

Here's an actual screenshot of the developer's website, grabbed off my E90.

Did I mention it was Free? :)