Following the recommendations drawn after the Commissioning Phase of the ENVISAT satellite in 2002, SCIAMACHY near real time data processors were upgraded to version 5.01 in early 2004. Before public release of the new SCIAMACHY nitrogen dioxide (NO2) vertical column data product, several validation teams investigated its improvement and assessed its geophysical consistency by means of correlative studies involving NDSC-affiliated ground-based networks of DOAS UV-visible and FTIR spectrometers and the ERS-2 GOME satellite. In parallel, preliminary SCIAMACHY NO2 column data products generated by research processors under development at scientific institutes were also tested, using the same correlative data and validation procedures. Digesting the results obtained by a list of validation teams and SCIAMACHY data processing teams, this overview paper draws a preliminary quality assessment of the SCIAMACHY NO2 column data sets available in spring 2004.