Nokia confirm Lumia 800 battery issue: Working on fix and offering replacement handsets
Following complaints from new owners of Nokia’s Lumia 800 Windows Phone handsets, the Finnish mobile giants have confirmed that they too have now noted an issue with the smartphone’s battery performance.
Speaking on the Nokia Support Discussions page, the company detailed the problem, and promised a fix was on the way.
“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”, wrote Nokia.
“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.
“The good news is that as this is a software problem it can be easily resolved. 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.”
With such a massively high profile launch for the flailing phone manufacturers, Nokia have been keen to seem on top of the situation as soon as possible. Driving home their commitment to their fledgling Windows Phone user base, Nokia have promised to replace the phone of anyone found affected by the problem, should the person not want to wait for the forthcoming software fix:
“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.”
“Anyone who wants to know if their phone is affected can run the battery status test from the diagnostics tool already installed on their phone. (The tool is designed for service use and only displays approximate values.)
“Dialling ##634# opens the diagnostics tool. By accepting the disclaimer and then selecting ‘Battery Status’ from the list of options, anyone will be able to see their available battery charge capacity.
“If your full charge capacity reads less than 1000 mAh then your phone is affected with this specific issue and you may find it is necessary to charge your phone more frequently than normal. Once the software update has been applied, you should experience much better battery life.”
Fair play to Nokia for putting their hands up and offering replacement units, which is certainly a costly pledge to make. Still, with their fortunes on the rocks and Windows Phone still only enjoying middling popularity, these sort of PR moves are a must if the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia is to blossom.
