JRRZZ Blog

A while ago a colleague of mine advised to update my E71, because it would give me some nice new features. I had never updated the phone since I got it. I was running version 100 dot something, while 200 dot something was the newest version. I must have missed a lot. So I tried updating my E71 today. Here’s the story.

First I went to nokia.com. The site didn’t work. I guess they couldn’t handle the big amount of Nokia fans. So I went to nokia.nl, my local site. This site did work, but just looked funny in Firefox. I tried finding updates for my E71, but I couldn’t find any. I did find a Nokia software update utility, however. So I downloaded that. Apparently I had to run Windows in order to update my phone. Luckily I had a spare XP box collecting dust on my desk. Before the Nokia software updater could finish though, it warned me it had found a newer version of itself. How could that be? I had just downloaded the damn app. It wasn’t just a minor update, either. The software I got from Nokia’s localized site was a full two versions behind. After installing the right Nokia software updater, I had to reboot my machine. Eh, reboot my machine after installing an installer installer? Come on! But okay, I rebooted the computer like I was supposed to. Apparently the application had registered itself as an autorun app of some sort, because it showed itself directly after logging in again. It’s a butt ugly app too, by the way. It’s a mix between Mac OS X buttons and progress bars, Mozilla like green arrows plus Vista window decorations. Anyway, the application warned me I had to run the Nokia PC suite first to make a backup of all of the phone’s data. What? So I need a second app to make a backup. Right, so I installed that PC suite of theirs. It came with all the bells and whistles, including some modem drivers I don’t need. Hooray. Making a backup went smoothly, no problems at all. It did take ages, but that’s okay. I knew the E71 has a slow USB connection. Back to the Nokia software updater. Now it warned me I had to put my profile back to the default setting. I don’t know why they need the phone not to be silent, but if that’s what it takes, I’d gladly re-enable my black metal ringtone. The software updater took five minutes to figure out it was an E71 it was talking to. The PC suite was happily showing a picture of an E71 on the background, but the software updater seemed to be ignorant and wanted to find that out on it’s own. After finally claiming victory over the USB connection, the software updater could continue. It had to download a huge binary blob from one of the slowest servers on the internet. I could almost see the Nokia brand slowly change to Asus. Next, it showed a lot of warnings again. The phone might seem dead during the update, and it might also disconnect every once in a while. Great, thanks for the heads up. During the update the phone’s display turned bright white, like it wanted to make sure the battery would drain before the update could finish. I quickly connected the phone to the power supply, just to make sure it didn’t. After a while the software updater reported that the update was successful.

Now I had upload my backup again. The Nokia PC suite informed me there wasn’t any phone connected. I tried pressing some buttons on the phone in order to wake it up, but it kept mimicking a dead Nokia technician. So I disconnected it and tried to turn it on. It did turn on, for a while. The lights worked, the vibration worked, but where’s my trusty Nokia logo? I reconnected it to the power supply, tried again and it still didn’t work. I tried pulling the battery out and putting it back in again. This did have an effect. After turning on the phone the lights kept burning and the vibration didn’t stop. Great, now my E71 is mimicking a vibrator flashlight combo. I had to pull the damn battery out or the thing would never shut down [sic].

Damn, so I’ve bricked it. I revisited nokia.nl again, looking for some kind of support. Apparently Nokia has built phone hospitals (or morgues) all over the world, called Nokia Care Points. I guessed they’re the Nokia equivalent of the Apple Store, but with well equipped Finnish women instead of gay Apple fanboys. I tried finding a point in Eindhoven. The website that should help me find the Nokia Care Point didn’t work in Firefox. I had an experimental webkit based browser, so I tried that. Hooray, it worked. Apparently there’s a Nokia Care Point in Eindhoven. But it wasn’t what I had expected at all. It’s some kind of business telecom provider, not targeted at the average tech savvy folk like me. I’ll call them using POTS next week or something.

Anyway, if the Nokia Care Point dares to even charge for the repairs I’m going to buy myself a new phone. Not a Nokia this time. What the hell happened to Nokia all of a sudden? They used to produce the best phones in the world, and they still do, but the desktop apps just plain suck. I’ve heard Google has a Linux based phone OS available these days. As long as it runs an SSH client over 3G, I’m a happy hacker.