Nokia 808 and HSPA bug

[peterh337]

Are there any GSM network specialists here?

The background is this:

The Nokia 808 has a "HSPA bug" which causes the phone to crash on HSPA connections, especially if the signal is weak (i.e. the phone has to use a lot of power to transmit).

Nokia's "solution" is to disable HSPA (http://www.nokia.com/pk-en/support/product/808/troubleshooting/?action=singleFAQ&caseid=FA140286_en_US) :)

From the mostly useless Nokia user forums (http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Nseries-and-Symbian-Smartphones/Bug-in-808-3g-mobile-data/td-p/1479724/page/29), it looks like after 35196505191xxxx they fixed them.

But there is too little feedback.

One interesting data point is that all 45 reviews on amazon.co.uk (almost the sole seller in the UK since Nokia don't sell it here so all are grey imports) do not mention this bug, so it looks like UK networks don't trigger it.

I wonder if UK HSPA gear is configured for a lower speed than in say USA or Germany.

[mixture]

almost the sole seller in the UK since Nokia don't sell it here so all are grey imports


I suspect therein lies your answer Sir.

Nokia are a business. UK is a significant market for them. There will be a reason why the unit is not officially offered over here.

[peterh337]

Not sure I understand what you are saying.

If you go to nokia.co.uk, select the 808, click on BUY, it takes you to.... amazon.co.uk :)

[Milo Minderbinder]

if you Google the thing, there are loads of people selling it

don't think I'll bother though......the thought of buying the last ever Symbian phone model really doesn't appeal

[Phalconphixer]

general observation and I could be totally wrong but... a quick look at the relative merits of HSUPA and HSDPA suggests that both require a 3G+ environment to work well. Could it be that 3G+ cover in your area is patchy or even non existent?
If I recall correctly UK 3G+ is known as 3.5G over here in Spain and coverage is generally very poor in both countries.
Given that in the UK Telecomms companies are pushing the new 4G system when a heck of a lot of the UK has no little or no 3G cover, could it be that they are just covering the cracks? My OH is based in Southsea, Portsmouth and struggles to get basic 3G cover from any of the UK operators.

Its just a point but might I ask Why Nokia? There are a hell of a lot of unremoveable bloatware apps included some of which are running in the background all the time and a lot of the apps that you might consider loading yourself are incompatible with the Symbian O.S. (flightradar24 for instance...!)

I bought my first smartphone about a year ago, a Nokia C6, and frankly the only good thing about it is the camera. The rest of it is total crap... Wifey swears by Blackberry, and her kids use Samsungs of one ilk or another.

[peterh337]

I didn't want to kick off a Symbian slagging off thread :)

As an owner of several Symbian phones (currently Nokia 700) and also having an Iphone4 in the house, I don't see an objective difference between these.

If you want a phone (for making calls) then Nokia make a great product. Totally consistently, put any Nokia alongside an Iphone4, in a weak signal area (i.e. most of UK countryside, including where we live) and the latter will become unusable first.

If you want a phone as a multimedia device, the Iphone4 excels with its very slick finger interface.

But the Nokias do the usual functionality just fine. I can get email (POP/SMTP), www (all the sites I actually need work just fine), it plays videos, takes pics, etc. Objectively I would not swap my Nokia 700 for the Iphone4. And if somebody sends me a 10MB PDF attachment at least on the Nokia I can copy it to an SD card, a USB stick, etc.

The 808 is an outstanding phone+camera device. The phone as as good as any Nokia, and the camera outclasses every pocket-sized camera including the ~£350 models such as the Canon S95 (except for the extremes of optical zoom). It probably matches some big stuff too, in simple lighting conditions etc. It may run a dead O/S but so what? I've got apps for everything I need, except perhaps the ability of Oziexplorer to run DIY (and various bootleg) maps, which is available under Android, but smartphones aren't great for GPS mapping apps because the constant-on display makes their battery life useless. Nokia Maps gives you outstanding satnav, free worldwide coverage, IME close to TomTom which cost £120 for the Iphone (£60 for Europe and another £60 for Greece :) ) and then the phone runs with external power anyway.

Jailbreaking Symbian is trivial (google on heloox), and the last few O/S updates didn't break the jailbreak, but most people don't need it because the file system is open, except for some system directories.

As regards 3G etc, Nokia phones normally show separate symbols for GPRS, EDGE, 3G, and I think anything above 3G is marked as "3.5G". It is common to see 3.5G in heavily built-up UK regions, and more so abroad where it is almost universal. I have just been to Lanzarote and the only place one could not get 3.5G was inside the caves :)

One can disable HSPA on Symbian phones, leaving just plain 3G. I measured loading times on some "heavy" websites and there is a ~ 5x speedup on HSPA so I consider this important.

I don't know why Nokia don't sell the 808 officially in the UK, while they obviously and openly sponsor Amazon to do so. It doesn't make commercial sense. The HSPA issue is a simple replacement of a MOSFET on the PCB, which Nokia service shops do, but one can't get it done in the UK because it's all grey imports.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I really think you've got this confused
The Nokia UK website directly links to Amazon, clearly indicating that Amazon are selling these legitimately, not as "grey imports". There are any number of other retailers also offering these online, many through Ebay, some direct.

I think you'll find the reason why few other large outlets have them available is two -fold
First the operating system. Symbian is dying, and the mobile phone network companies know it. They are not going to provide tech support training for a dying OS. They will not bundle any phones with their services which require specialist training for a dying operating system for just one model of phone. They have enough to worrry about with iOS, Android, Microsoft operating systems which all have a future
Second, Nokia is on its last legs and the network companies know it. They're not going to commit themselves to reselling product from a company that could go smash.
All Nokia have as an option is to try and sell these as SIM-free models on the open market. But few people can afford to purchase full price SIM-free phones, so sales volumes are going to be low, especially as its an unpopular OS anyway.
So overall? Its a dead end design using a dying operating system that few people want. That means minimal sales

[mixture]

Second, Nokia is on its last legs and the network companies know it. They're not going to commit themselves to reselling product from a company that could go smash.
All Nokia have as an option is to try and sell these as SIM-free models on the open market. But few people can afford to purchase full price SIM-free phones, so sales volumes are going to be low, especially as its an unpopular OS anyway.


Yup. I think Milo has hit the nail on the head here.

Nokia and RIM are on the same ship sailing towards an iceberg....unless they pull some magic out of the bag, their days are numbered.

iOS, Android and Microsoft is where its at these days.

[peterh337]

Anything on my original Q i.e. HSPA?

[cattletruck]

...especially if the signal is weak (i.e. the phone has to use a lot of power to transmit).

Could be a battery issue, particularly if it cannot sustain proper voltage during high drain. Depending on the power requirements in this situation, if the battery is faulty then the issue may persist even with a charger connected.

Can only suggest an external aerial, it won't reduce the battery drain required for supplying a "loud" signal in low signal strength situations (the base station tells your phone what signal power to use) but will improve the error-rate and reduce battery drain relating to cpu and retransmission.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Yup. I think Milo has hit the nail on the head here.

Nokia and RIM are on the same ship sailing towards an iceberg....unless they pull some magic out of the bag, their days are numbered.

iOS, Android and Microsoft is where its at these days.

Personally I think Nokia will survive off the back of Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 (which the wife loves btw). I can see Microsoft buying Nokia though.

RIM has already hit the iceberg as far as I care :)

[Milo Minderbinder]

Not so sure about that.....sales for Microsoft released this week also show their phone sales as slowing badly

[peterh337]

Anyway... I got an 808 out of a new batch and I think it still has the same HSPA problem, because it crashes about once a day. It does take a lot of effort to make it do it deliberately though, so I think it may be caused by some fairly specific network packet rather than just a great volume of data. Noki are not saying anything of course.

I turned off HSPA, as 3G gives me 300-400kbits/sec which is plenty.

The camera is amazing. I posted some pics here (http://www.euroga.org/forums/website/459-anybody-using-the-nokia-808).

What Nokia seem to have done in their last firmware is to change the HSPA annunciation from "3.5G" to "3G" so that people can no longer tell if they are using HSPA so they can't complain about it ;) The only way to tell is to do a speed measurement on a download from a known-fast server; HSPA is about 10x faster.