vodacom3g said:
Rikkelz, please provide us with the differences between the 'sub-standard' Vodafone and the 'real' Nokia software. What changes were made to make the software sub-standard?
This is obviously a serious matter and I'd like to immediately escalate this to the highest level in both Vodacom and Vodafone so your urgent reply will be greatly appreciated. I also would like to inform Nokia.
I assume you know you can change the skins on your phone?
Hi V3G, SO sorry that I didn't see your post earlier.
We visited Vodaworld on the 8th of August. On the job card it stated to collect at 15:00, we collected at about 2:40. I take it that our IMEI numbers could serve as proof that we did infact go to Nokia, shall I PM them to you?
We (my brother and myself – approached the counter simultaneously) asked the service technician at Nokia for a firmware upgrade for the N70 specifically because the gallery was really slow among some other issues. The phone had V.2.0… (I forget now as its not my phone). The technician then began telling us that there are much newer software versions available (he mentioned V6 – this is completely untrue though as V5.0616 is the latest AFAIK) but we couldn’t get the new software because they have to load the V-Live software and the latest version of the V-Live software was older than the newest Nokia software available. He also mentioned that the V-Live software is made by a 3rd party and not by Nokia itself and that’s why we saw so many N70s there (don’t believe him in this respect either because the gallery issues were also on the V2 software from Nokia).
However, having done research on the internet quite a while ago, operator branding on cellphones is most often a bad idea. I’ve read about countess people battling with the “Orange” branded software on their phones, where it interrupts basic function of the phone (people have also complained about Vodafone software – admittedly this was on the older symbian phones). I can only assume that the South African Vodafone cellphones are the same as the UK ones, it looks like a Vodafone phone and it feels like a Vodafone phone. But on a basic level, who do you think makes better, more reliable software for Nokia phones? Nokia or Vodafone?
Going back to the Nokia @ Vodaworld issue I also handed in my Nokia 6680 for an upgrade because there is also a new firmware for it (v5.04.07). We told the technician that we needed it in an hour because we had to be somewhere shortly afterward, however he left the collection time as 3PM (roughly two hours away).
We went to House of Coffee’s and returned just over an hour later. Collected our phones and left. Got into the car and checked the firmwares as we were leaving – they were identical to before we brought them in, by this time we couldn’t go back as we were already late for the other appointment.
So in summary, we had spent time backing up our SMSs, images, contacts, calendar; driving to Midrand from Centurion and waiting for an hour and a bit at Vodaworld in House of Coffees for absolutely nothing.
However I still stand by my earlier comment, the branding of the phones is unnecessary. I’m lucky with my 6680 as the branding is internal only, I can change my theme to get rid of the Vodafone look, however on my next phone I don’t think I’ll be so lucky. Take the N70 for example, it has the Vodafone logo on the back of the phone, it is engraved underneath the screen area and it has one of the buttons Nokia intended replaced with a Vodafone logo button. Customers should be able to elect to receive a Vodafone branded phone or not, after all we are paying for them.
). I’ve PMed you my IMEI number, you should be able to look that up on the system and get the name of the guy.
