Showdown at MWC 2011

The time has come finally for all those eager Nokia fans around the world who were waiting to see what the world largest manufacturer of mobile phones has in store. And sir they don't let you down. The Finns were fully prepared to steal the show. Nokia had in all five phones and a beast in the name of Nokia Pureview which is capable of giving the DSLR's a run for their money.Packing an astonishing 41MP sensor making even the best of DSLR cameras look like small toys.


Lets start with the expansion of the Lumia family. Nokia released the Lumia 900 and the highly affordable Lumia 610. Powered by a single-core 800Mhz Snapdragon processor, 256 MB RAM, and  8GB internal storage(expandable SD Slot). The Lumia 610 sports a 5MP camera with auto-focus and LED flash. Lumia 610 comes at a highly affordable price of €189. This is the first Nokia WP running the new Tango OS.

The big brother of Lumia 800, Lumia 900 was also on display. Priced at around €480, the Lumia 900 is expected to hit the stores along with 610 by Q2 this year. Both the Lumia phones will receive updates for various  applications including the Nokia Drive, with the addition of speed limits and fully functioning offline navigation. The next is Nokia Reading, which is a news feed app like the Google reader, providing local language support, books and news. And this is totally free!!




In the feature phone end, we have the three more Asha's 202,203 and 302.  While the other two sport  alphanumeric keypad, the 302 has a QWERTY keypad for extensive messaging. The 302 packs a 1Ghz processor with TFT Capacitive touch screen. One extra perk from the Nokia-Microsoft partnership is the Microsoft Exchange Email support which is included in Asha 302.

While 202, 203 have a 2MP camera, the elder Asha has 3.2MP. We hope that the Asha phones get upgraded with Smarterphone OS in near future increasing their functionality and popularity among users.


Now we uncover the beast, truly living upto its name as the elusive successor of Nokia N8, the new heir of the camera phone king, Nokia 808 PureView. The teasers which gave a slight hint as to what can be expected from Nokia PureView is nothing compared to original experience. This a true revolution in the field of photography let alone in smartphones. While others are honing their skills in red eye reduction and naive image processing, PureView captures image in its pristine form. 

PureView imaging technology doesnt represent a step change for camera smartphone performance ,so much as a quantum leap forward.Unprecedented camera control and versatility, combined with truly spectacular-quality images and video. Nokia 808 PureView sets new industry standards — it will give you around 3x lossless zoom for stills, and 4x zoom in full HD 1080p. For 720p HD video, you’re looking at 6x lossless zoom.
 
And for nHD (640x360) video, an amazing 12x zoom!

Being a Nokia fanboy i'd like to keep bragging about this piece of "optical" technological marvel but lets take a lokk at its specs now. The Nokia 808 PureView powered by 1.3Ghz processor, 512 MB RAM and running Nokia Belle. For a camera this powerful, the display is a 4"AMOLED nHD covered with a curved  Gorilla Glass. It is packed with NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, USB OnTheGo and 16GB of on-board storage expandable with MicroSD.


The Nokia PureView is expected to storm the markets by May 2012. Let's hope that Nokia isn't partial in releasing the PureView as was the case with Nokia N9.

Symbian ends 2011 in style

Recently StatCounter, an online statistics tool published their analysis on the global smartphone users. The StatCounter tool is embedded on many websites which in turn tracks the browser and the operating System used. According to the statistics released, the Symbian Operating system tops the chart for the year 2011. The Symbian OS still dominates the market with over 31% of the smartphone market share. The iOS finishes second just above the android operating system.


The Symbian OS started 2011 just above the apple iOS at around 30%. The surge in the popularity of Symbian rose to around 34% during mid-June, where the iOS shows steady decline owing to constant competition and lawsuits. However, the Symbian OS saw a gradual decline halfway through 2011. The introduction of Symbian Anna brought back the stability to the Symbian Smartphones for which it is known. The hardware on the handsets and the stable operating systems saw Nokia win over many new fans. The last quarter saw the most growth in popularity of the Symbian. This was mainly due to the introduction of Symbian Belle(Currently Nokia Belle). The Nokia Belle boasted of an array of exciting new features. Naturally the new OS was made available to the existing devices which met the hardware requirement. Nokia Symbian ended the year 2011 with a strong 31% share still dominating the market.


2011 has been an excellent year for the Nokia fans with Symbian Anna and Symbian Belle both being launched. There was no doubt in the dominance of the Symbian OS, mainly due to its simple and lightweight design. Though the collaboration of Nokia and Microsoft has raised a few concerns regarding the fate of Symbian OS, we can confidently say after the statistics of 2011 Symbian is far from over. The year 2012 promises to be an exciting year for Symbian loyalists, with the Symbian Belle update being made available for Anna users.


Also 2012 marks the debut of two new operating systems the Symbian Carla and Symbian Donna. According to reports both the operating systems must be out by the second or third quarter of 2012. Let's hope they can claim many many accolades as their predecessors and help Symbian dominate the 2012 as well.       

Belle's are here...

Nokia released its next installment in Symbian called Symbian Belle on 24 Aug, 2011. Looking hotter than Anna and very much power packed it is still a very sustainable phone (all Symbian phones are) unlike the power and resource hungry droids. The upgraded operating system will be available on new devices and the update will be released for existing devices in Feb 2012.

Here are some of the features of the Belle operating system:
Differently shaped Live widgets: Unlike Anna where you've to add a shortcut widget and it can hold 4 shortcuts, you can add any number of single shortcuts on the screen. You can even add favorite contacts to the home screen.

More homescreens: The number of home screens has been increased from three to six each having a separate wallpaper of its own. Now everything will seem much easier to access with six homescreens.

NFC integration: The newest and most hassle free way of data transfer and communication is deeply integrated into the Belle operating system. Sharing pics and videos, connecting with accessories is just a tap away.

The status bar: Belle sports a very informative status bar which can be dragged from the top of the screen. One might have noticed it already in the droids. The status bar contains the quick access to recent events, WiFi, Bluetooth, profile change.

The main menu is flat now, vertically scrollable. All the shortcuts placed in one place. No more folders. But if the user wants he can create a folder and add some shortcuts into it.

The lock screen can be given a designer touch by assigning it with a wallpaper for itself while displaying missed events notification.

Belle also includes new apps from Microsoft - Lync (IM for business, like Microsoft Communicator), Sharepoint, OneNote, Exchange ActiveSync and PowerPoint Broadcaster.

Four devices were planned to open up with Belle to the users 600, 603,700,701. But for some unknown reasons shipment of 600 was cancelled abruptly. it is believed that Nokia considered 600 will clash with the release of its Windows phone Lumia 800 and to avoid this 600 was cancelled.

Why not NOKIA symbian?

Nokia... Being the largest cellphone manufacturer in the world this finnish giant needs no introduction. It has been an inspiring trendsetter in every milestone of mobile technology. It has been a pioneer in developing the GSM technology, one of the first to introduce data and voice traffic in mobile phones. In 1992 Nokia launched the first ever commercial mobile based on GSM technology the Nokia 1011. The classic ringtone 'Nokia tune' was incorporated in the Nokia 2100 in the year 1994. In the year 1992 Nokia Corp decided to focus solely on telecommunication. From then on there has been no turning back. Arguably the best mobile manufacturer in the world today boasts of the best mobile hardware there in the field of mobile technology.

Operating System: Symbian 

 Symbian is a mobile operating system and platform for smartphones, and is currently maintained and devleoped by Accenture . Nokia Corp was one of founders the Symbian Foundation, it is the most widely used operating system in the world. Nokia was the major contributor for Symbian in terms of code and development.Till date Nokia has been responsible for the rise of the Symbian operating system as one of the best in the world. Symbian os offers to the core no non-sense performance. Regardless of many other numerous mobile operating systems the Symbian Os stands out for its uniqueness. Developed solely by Nokia for every users for instance the series 40 platform offers easy and user friendly operation for the basic users. And for the more advanced category there is a wide range of Symbian operating systems ranging from the series 60, Symbian^3, Symbian Anna to the more recent marvel Symbian Belle and the upcoming Carla, Donna.

The main attribute of Symbian smartphones is their performance. The operating system functions smoothly without over using the processor. Such is the nature of the Os, that it can function remarkably with just a 1Ghz processor. Every part of a Nokia mobile is carefully crafted and suited to the customers. Not only that security is a major feature of the operating system. Third party applications can only be installed if the application is Signed using a certificate. This offers a great deal of security. In case of app development,the symbian os nowadays uses Standard C++ along with Qt the new high level GUI scripting framework.


In my opinion Nokia Symbian Os is the best platform for mobile telecommunications. The products manufactured by the communication giant outperform every other competitors. Nokia is and will  continue to be the largest Mobile manufacturer in the world.