New firmware for the Nokia Lumia 920 (1232.5957.1308.0004) was briefly spotted on Monday, March 4 on Navifirm before quickly being taken down.
Some users were able to take advantage of the ephemeral blip on NaviFirm — which helps Nokia users download firmware to their phones/computers — with some exciting results.
"Thankfully some eagle eyed members of the community were able to spot it and download it before it went offline," says MyNokiaBlog.
New features that Lumia 920 users who downloaded the firmware discovered include higher camera performance "as well as new features to control the device's storage," reports MyNokiaBlog.
MyNokiaBlog reminds readers that Portico was "the official major camera update for the 920."
Portico's own features include improvements to messaging, texting while receiving incoming calls, Internet Explorer, Wi-Fi connectivity along with "many other improvements" to the Lumia 920 (and other Windows 8 phones).
This new Lumia 920 firmware, however, has a new storage layout with a revised design that allows users see a readout of storage data. With the firmware installed on their Lumia 920s, users can also now "clear" their temporary storage.
MyNokiaBlog believes this "clear" option may be the "fix" Windows Phone team head at Microsoft, Joe Belfiore, was talking about when he mentioned the company was working on such issues as "shrink storage."
"'Other' storage: some improvements coming in future updates, it will get better," Belfiore tweeted on Saturday, March 2. "Try turn-off skydrive auto-photo upload."
Nokia Power User has announced that the new firmware — which it confirmed was on NaviFirm and is still there for variant RM-821 — is in fact upgrade "GDR2."
This makes sense, considering Portico's codename was "GDR1."
Users who have downloaded the new upgrade have also seen "much better sharpness and color balance" when using their Lumia 920 cameras. In addition to the "clear" option for temporary storage, Nokia Power User also relays that those who downloaded the firmware in China saw that their phones "now periodically clean the temporary file dump which will help in keeping that 'Other storage' in control automatically."
Nokia Power User went on to state that the new firmware will clearly be given a real name soon and that users who weren't able to grab the preview update should be seeing the "second OS update pretty soon."
Like what you're reading? Follow @profklickberg.
(Edited by Lois Heyman)
