This guide has been entirely rewritten in 2008-01-11. New adjustments have been made to make the guide compatible with all N95 versions out there such as the N95-1 (classic), N95-2 (8GB), N95-3 (North American aka. US) and the coming N95-4? (8GB US).
This guide starts with some common questions and problems users might have. If you don’t want to read those, you can jump directly to the firmware upgrade instructions.
Sections:
So whats a firmware anyway?
In general a firmware is usually a computer program that is embedded in a hardware device. A firmware is somewhere between hardware and software. Like software, it is a computer program which is executed by a computer. But it is also an intimate and vital part of a piece of hardware, and has little meaning outside of that particular hardware.
In practical terms, firmware updates can improve the performance and reliability of a device, indeed even the basic available functionality of a device, and many devices benefit from regular firmware updates. - Wikipedia on firmware
In English this means the firmware is your mobile device’s operating software. It’s the software that is embedded in the memory of your device and includes applications such as the calendar and the phonebook. This is similar to the operating system software on your PC (Windows). User data such as contacts, photos, messages, and add-on applications such as Java games or Symbian applications are not part of the device firmware.
What are the benefits of updating my firmware?
The benefits of updating the device firmware include getting new features, applications, and performance improvements to your device. The benefits differ in each firmware update. To know the exact benefits try to do a web search on ‘changelog’ and the firmware version you consider updating to, something like ‘changelog v.15 n95 8gb‘ on Google would result in relevant information on what benefits you would get by updating your Nokia N95 8GB to the 15.0.015 version firmware.
We’ll of course also keep you updated on new firmware versions and changelogs right here on SimplySymbian.com, so make sure you’ll check in from time to time, subscribe to our RSS feed (using your browser or RSS reader of choice) or by Email to get the latest news and articles we produce. You can remove the subscriptions at any time and we promise not to spam your Email with commercial ads.
Will I lose any user data if I update my device firmware?
User data (contacts, photos, messages and files) and add-on applications such as Java games or Symbian applications will likely be deleted during the software update. It is therefore strongly recommended that you make a back-up of data such as contacts, messages, and images before updating the mobile device firmware. When performing the update, and your device requires a data backup, the application will instruct you how to perform the back-up.
Note: Nokia device firmware cannot be downgraded. Once you have upgraded your device, you will not be able to restore to the earlier version.
How to back-up my user data?
There are several methods of backing-up user data. The most common one is Nokia’s solution which includes making a copy of your phones memory and later restoring this. In my experience, this does not work very well always as a new firmware can include systems changes which a restoration can collide with. If you are lucky you will not experience any of this, however if you are not so lucky you might experience some applications and games need re-installation and decreased performance.
I find it safer to back-up data manually by copying files to my PC using normal data-transfers and storing contacts using synchronization. This method of course has it’s limitations as no license information can be stored. Hopefully in the future Nokia will add functionality for users to select what they want to back-up using the Nokia PC Suite.
Here are some traditional back-up methods:
How do I update my firmware?
Note: Nokia device firmware cannot be downgraded. Once you have upgraded your device, you will not be able to restore to the earlier version. You can however re-install the same firmware version as you’re already running as many times as you want (which sometimes can cure back-up restoration problems).
Alright, this is what you need to do to update your firmware:
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