14 DAY TRIAL // About a month ago, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has made available for purchase its first handset running under Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, the Nokia Lumia 800, and the company has just acknowledged an issue with the handset’s battery. The phone does not deliver enough juice for its users, and that has caused a lot of people to be unhappy with their new smartphones.
However, it appears that all is software related, and that it will be resolved via a future software update.
“On Monday 12th December some of our customers started to comment in various social media that the preloaded diagnostics tool in some of the Nokia Lumia 800 phones was showing lower battery capacity than expected,” Nokia notes on its forums.
“We immediately started to investigate these reports and can now confirm that while the battery itself is fine, a software problem on certain variants is limiting the phone’s ability to access the full battery capacity.”
Apparently, the issue is present only on the Lumia 800 device, and not on the cheaper Lumia 710, at least this is what Nokia says.
Moreover, the company says that the issue is easily fixable, and that the aforementioned software update will be pushed out early next year for that. Moreover, the vendor offers replacement phones for those who would like a quick remedy for the issue.
“The planned software update in early 2012, as well as including many performance enhancements, will also include a fix that will enable the affected phones to access the total battery capacity,” Nokia says.
“For anyone who does not want to wait for the software update, Nokia can arrange for a replacement phone. Anyone who requires any further clarification should contact Nokia Care (Care contact details and locations can be found at www.Nokia.com/support).”
Users can verify whether their devices are affected or not courtesy of the diagnostics tool that Nokia installed on them right from the start. To launch it, simply dial ##634#. From the list of options, users should select Battery Status, after accepting the disclaimer.
“If your full charge capacity reads less than 1000mAh then your phone is affected with this specific issue and you may find it is necessary to charge your phone more frequently than normal,” Nokia says.
“Once the software update has been applied, you should experience much better battery life,” the company’s statement ends.