Home : Articles : Three E61 Firmware Upgrade
The Nokia E61 is getting on a bit now but I still use (and like) mine. Although Three offered me a handset upgrade recently, I decided to stick with this one; there aren't many phones with QWERTY keyboards (a feature I'd find it hard to lose) and, in general, it's a very competent little device. My only gripes are:
- Frequent random reboots
- Takes an inordinately long time to send messages
- The browser is extremely primitive
- No camera
Apart from the lack of a camera (which I can easily live with), all of these problems would be fixed by a firmware upgrade. The only problem was that when I downloaded Nokia's PC Suite and Software Updater, I kept getting a message informing me that my phone was already at the latest version.
What it boils down to is that E61s supplied by Three have a different Product Code from normal UK E61s. The Software Updater uses the Product Code to check for updates, and when using the Three-specific Product Code it finds none. I'm not a mobile phone expert, but it occurred to me that if I could somehow get my phone to use the normal E61 Product Code, the firmware upgrade would install. This did, in fact, work for me; what follows is a quick description of how I did it.
Bear in mind that doing this is not risk free; I'm providing this information in the hope that it will be useful and helpful, but I provide no warranties at all. I'm going to suggest you install software on your PC and manipulate your phone in ways the manufacturer and network operator didn't expect end users to and might not appreciate; it's up to you to manage the risks of doing this and deal with the consequences if it goes wrong.
Before you start
Use the Nokia PC Suite to back up your phone first. Even if we weren't about to do weird stuff to your phone, updating the firmware will erase all your data. Backing up is easy; I'm not going to cover stuff like that here. Nokia supply some documentation for the PC Suite and anyway, if you can't feel your way around its easy UI you probably aren't best advised to attempt to change your phone's Product Code...
Before you start, make sure your phone has plenty of charge in its battery; it's actually very easy to upgrade the firmware without bricking your phone, but if it powers down half way through it is unlikely to be recoverable (your firmware needs to be basically working before you can flash it, so failing halfway through is probably going to be terminal).
Download and install the Nemesis Service Suite from B-Phreaks. I'm not vouching for the safety of using this software; I hate downloading anything I don't have the source for, especially on a Windows box. I don't mean to suggest that B-Phreaks are untrustworthy (the software doesn't seem to have harmed my token toaster), but you might want to do this with a throw-away Windows installation (e.g. a virtual machine) if you're paranoid about this sort of thing.
NSS installation starts off simple and slick; just unpack the executable from the ZIP file and run it. Towards the end it issues some messages about devices and drivers, but I found that without messing around with that stuff it worked for my purposes. NSS is a powerful tool, intended to work with B-Phreaks' mobile phone service hardware; I suspect the device driver shenanigans are required only to get full functionality with such a device.
Setting the Standard Product Code
Start NSS. The main window starts off fairly blank, as pictured. On the toolbar, the right hand button (the magnifying glass) will tell the software to scan for your device. Your phone should be connected before you scan of course.
The scan can take a little while; when it's finished, the window looks something like this:
Click Phone Info and then, in the Production Data Edit frame on the right, click Read.
After a brief pause, your phone's data will be read and the fields will be populated. Note down your product code for later. Mine is 0537459, which is probably the same as yours; this is the Three-specific code for the E61. You'll need this later if you intend to return your phone to normal after the upgrade.
Note: If your product code is different, make sure you know what you're doing! If you have a different model of phone, this procedure (or something like it) will probably work, but you can't use the codes given in this article. A bit of web searching will probably turn up the right codes to use for your phone. If your code differs and you have an E61, but are on a different network, this should still work, but when you're restoring your product code later (if you choose to do so), use the one you see here later when restoring.
Right, the generic UK E61 product code is 0523307. Remove the current contents of the Product Code field and type this number. Now, tick the Enable checkbox beside the Product Code field and click Write.
Now, you can quit NSS and run Nokia's Software Updater again; this time, it should find firmware and update it.
Finishing Up
Once your new firmware is installed, restore from your backup to get your messages, contacts etc. back. You probably don't strictly need to restore the Three-specific product code, but I did, just in case. Repeat the process of setting the product code to the standard one, but use 0537459 as the new code (or whatever yours was before, if different).
Results
I've been very happy with the results, using firmware version 3.0633.09.04; the browser's seen a major (and very worthwhile) update, text message sending is as fast as you'd hope and expect it would be, and I've not had a single weird reboot, hang or flake-out since then. I'm definitely no longer contemplating replacing the phone now!
