Get more battery life out of your Nokia N95-3

Ever since I turned off my 3G data network setting on the Nokia N95-3 which seems to have provided a temporary fix for the bug in firmware 20.2.011 from shutting itself off randomly, I noticed a significant boost in battery run time per charge cycle. I am going on three days with the battery meter showing as full. Is the 3G chip really that draining on the battery?

Nokia N95-3 Random Shut Off, Possible Solution

Over the last five days, my N95 has randomly shut itself down twice; I was just too lazy to report it here (as I always have). However, I am writing this blog entry with a potential solution to this problem (although not a solution I like, but it manages to keep my phone from shutting down until Nokia addresses this issue with an updated firmware).

I found tip from this Howard Forum thread, where lots of forum members are getting more stability by setting the phone network to GSM (EDGE) only as opposed the default dual mode GSM+UMTS (EDGE+3G) setting. I am now going on my second day without any problems; I hope this is indeed a good short term solution because nothing is more irritating than when you pick up a phone that has shut itself down.

Daily Exercise: Nokia N95-3 Shuts Down Again

Yup, like I promised, I will continue to document for each time my Nokia N95-3 shuts itself down mysteriously since the firmware 20.2.11 upgrade (not much of an upgrade if you ask me, if it shuts itself down at random). This time, the phone shut itself down in the middle of the night, again.

For fun, this time, I will do a soft-reset *#7370# on handset to see if getting rid of all my installed apps may be the cause of this bug. Regardless, I second Michael Mace's article "Nokia goes for 1% Market Share in US", with the bad mobile experience I've had with Symbian S60 3rd Edition and Nokia's lack of quality control in dealing with software issues, I am walking away from them for good!

Update 6/24/08: I started a thread and found another thread on Howard Forums to see if anyone else is getting the same thing, answer is yes. Even the N95-4 people are having the same problem.

Nokia N95 Shuts Itself Down, Once again

Like I've said, I will continue to blog about how my N95 just shuts itself down randomly ever since the 20.2.11 firmware upgrade. To keep track of how many times it has done this, visit my original article "Nokia N95-3 Mysteriously Shuts Down".

As part of the remedy this time around, I will perform a Nokia factory restore/reset *#7780# (this method is mild because it keeps all of my contacts and apps in place) in hopes the problem will go away. Hopefully, there will be no "next time", but I will likely try the soft-reset *#7370# to bring it back to factory default.

Nokia N95-3, shuts itself down, once again!

I'll make this one short. We had a storm last night here in NYC. I wanted to setup a backup alarm incase the power is out for a brief time resetting my clock. I grabbed my wife's iPhone instead of my Nokia N95 fearing it may shut itself down during the night (my worst nightmare).

Well, the storm did not trip the power grid so my alarm clock worked fine. When I picked up my N95-3, it had turned off on its own sometimes in the middle of the night. I just chuckled at it, rigby ht now, this Nokia N95-3 is just a joke to me. Its unreliable and I can't trust it... just counting down my days to buy the Sony Xperia X1 or possible 3G iPhone (maybe today...)

Last time this happened, I tried reinstalling all the media back on my MicroSDHC thinking that could be the cause. This time, I am leaning towards my custom profile setting (which shouldn't cause this) but I will revert back to the default profile "NORMAL" and remove my custom setting for further testing.

PS - I am actually on a business trip to Chicago for a couple of days. Guess I'll be relying on the hotel reception for wake up calls... :)

My Nokia N95 Shuts Down Unexpectedly Again

Yup, it happened again. This Nokia N95 phone is starting to really suck royally. As mentioned before, it started to power down unexpectedly on its own ever since the firmware 20.2.011 update. I have missed 3 calls and got 1 VM as a result this afternoon. This time the phone shut down some time between 1PM and 6PM on its own. I don't believe any application is running.

I will, keep documenting and write on my blog about how crappy my mobile experience have been with this POS Nokia N95-3 with its countless problems until this goes away... (hopefully with a new firmware).

Update: I will attempt to do something about this since I can't seem to find any fix online. Since updated my firmware, I kept my content on my MicroSDHC card from the previous firmware. I will now reload all my music file and Nokia Maps to get a clean start by reformtting the microSDHC card, wondering if they may have something to do with it. Doubtful, but its another item to cross off of the process of elimination.

Nokia N95-3 Mysteriously Shuts Down

I don't know what it is with my Nokia N95-3, but it always yields a sense of uneasiness when it comes to trusting it. Especially with my phone tend to power itself down for no reason. It happened a couple of times when I first bought the phone. But ever since I upgraded the latest firmware, 20.2.011, it has turned itself off unexpectedly twice in one week including this morning. Is anyone else seeing this? My patience with Nokia phones is running pretty thin these days.

Reference: My N95 occasionally shuts down unexpectedly...
Reference: Nokia N95-1 Automatically Shuts Off...
Reference: Howard Forum - N95-3 turns itself off randomly. Anyone else? Suggestions?
Reference: Howard Forum (my thread) - N95-3 Shuts Off Randomly, post 20.2.11 upgrade

Update: 6/4/08 - My N95 unexpectedly shuts down again this afternoon... made me miss 3 calls.
Update: 6/9/08 - N95 Shuts down in middle of night... my worst fear comes true
Update: 6/19/08 - Nokia N95 Shuts Itself Down, Once again
Update: 6/23/08 - The N95-3 Shuts itself down in the middle of night, once again!
Update: 7/8/08 - N95 Shuts down twice over past week, possible solution with network setting?