Earlier in the week, Nokia came out with their PR1.01 and people were wondering when the “by Christmas” update that Nokia promised was coming. Well, question no more. Nokia’s PR1.1 update raises the Maemo 5 build to 2.2009.51-1.

First up is support for the Swiss keymat variant with hardware and virtual keyboard layouts supporting the combination of German, Italian and English characters. We’ll also see full compatibility with certain SIM cards from network operator 3. Although only a small number of SIM cards were impacted at the time, this release means the N900 is now fully compatible with 3 SIM cards.

Mail for Exchange also sees an update which will it allow it to work with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. This should bring the possibility of Exchange integration to a much broader group of users.

Ovi Maps also gets the update treatment, with improvements made to search performance and route calculation. Beyond these major changes come a range of smaller usability improvements which have been worked into the release and are based on the excellent user feedback the team have received (keep it coming).

Microsoft Exchange 2003 support, an updated Ovi Maps, among other fixes that people have been plain out begging for since the initial release of the Nokia N900.

The rollout is being staged across multiple territories, so if you do not see it now, be patient. Read more about it at Nokia Connections or at the Nokia Maemo 5 Wiki.

[ Links: Nokia Connections, Maemo 5 Wiki, Maemo Talk ]