Nokia's been delivering some hefty firmware upgrades to its handsets lately, with a huge update to its N79 the other week, and now a collection of big fixes for the N96. The latest version 12.043 firmware also speeds up the phone in general, according to reports form users who have already downloaded the package, making it much less frustrating to use. These improvements come from changes in menu navigation, now with faster transitions - this should also help speed-up web performance.

A change in the code managing the phone's camera should fix issues with picture quality and focus problems. Bluetooth support gets an unspecified fix, supposedly improving compatibility in general. The other corrections are mostly minor, just fixing quirks in how the phone behaved under certain conditions — though one biggie, fixing the snooze function, could be a lifesaver if you use your phone as an alarm clock.

The update is available now via the Nokia Software Updater, and should also be available as an over-the-air download from your provider. No word on if this fixes any of the SMS-crashing bugs we just heard about affecting S60 platforms.

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