Advantages of Nokia Symbian over other Operating Systems

Since the age of smartphones has begun,there's been a constant hassle over the best smartphone operating system. Let us consider the main criteria which denote an ideal Smartphone Operating System :

• Variety : There is a wide range of Nokia Smart Phones to chose from like Bar,Slide,Touch Screen models, QWERTY and Touch Screen with QWERTY models. All other Operating systems work on touch screen models or the QWERTY models(iOS,Android,Blackberry).

•  Navigation: Nokia Smart phones offer better navigation through A-GPS and the Ovi Maps application(pre-loaded with maps).  Voice guidance is another feature that doesn't come free in most phones.

• Battery life: No one can beat Nokia in terms of Battery life. Nokia offers the best battery life in case of smart phones. The main reason being the use of operating systems that sustain on lower usage of the processor.

•  Camera Quality: Camera quality of the Symbian phones is relatively better than other OS. Nokia is known for its picture quality in camera phones. The N8 when released gave Digital Camera's a run for their money.

• No Permanent Internet Connection: Nokia phones require the Internet only for short periods of time. Its not the case with other Operating systems. Their functionality is dependent on a permanent data connection and the traffic in terms of data of symbian phones is very minimal. 

• Multi-tasking: Multi tasking in Symbian is the simplest there exists in any smart phone.Every Symbian phone consists of a home key,which can be used to multi-task with ease. Other smartphones provide assisted multi-tasking by means of an external application or just suspend the other application and call it multitasking ( No offence iOS).

• PC and Ovi Synchronisation: Synchronization of data is much more simple in Symbian Smart phones. It can be done via an Ovi account. Also PC synchronization of various personal information is much less complex in Nokia Phones courtesy the Ovi Suite(Universal for all Nokia Phones).

• Audio and Video: The loudspeaker and the audio quality of Nokia Smartphones is the best in its class. The Symbian is known to support many video formats with subs without external software's to include other extensions 

• Apps: In the field of apps Nokia has a huge developer networks for Symbian phones. Its very simple to design apps for Nokia in any platform using the Qt framework. Also Nokia Apps are compatible within various platforms.

• Price : Nokia offers smartphones in various price ranges suited for customers in every price band. The customer has a variety of choices to chose from.

The Nokia N9... Simplicity at its best...

Simple life is the best life. I'm sure everyone will agree. Keeping this simplicity in mind Nokia releases its opus smart phone, the Meego running, Nokia N9. MeeGo OS is developed jointly by Nokia and Intel. On your first encounter you will notice that the front of the phone is completely bare. There isn't a freakin key!!! The phone is made only of two parts the curved glass and a non-painted, colored single poly carbonate body. The only hardware buttons in the phone are the volume rocker and lock key/power key on the right side of the phone. 

Nokia N9 measures 116.5X61.2X12.1mm and weighs 135g. Its an all screen unibody design with 2.5D curved glass that's fitted nicely from edge to edge. It has a 3.9 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen. It has a scratch proof Gorilla glass screen and an anti glare coating to be used in broad daylight. It comes in 16/64GB storage variation with no external memory card option. Nokia leaves no stones unturned as this marvel boasts of Dolby Sound Enhancement and Dolby headphones support for the music lovers. This technology has never been embedded in a smartphone before. In other words it has everything you need and nothing you don't.

The swipe technology is used to explore through the phone which seems so seamless. It’s based on three simple views. The apps view, the running apps view and the notifications. When in an open app you swipe your finger from any edge to the opposite it gets minimized. Swipe in the home screen and you can see the installed apps. Another swipe will show the open apps three in a row, allowing the user to see a slightly enlarged two in a row view when pinch zoomed.

On the photographic end N9 is loaded with an 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, dual LED and 4x digital zoom for both video and pictures. It is capable of recording 720p HD video at 30 fps with stereo sound. N9 also boasts of the fastest camera in smartphones with a super fast launch and capture of images. Nokia understands that the best moments in life are fleeting and thus provides this feature so you do not miss out on the finest moments in life.


Within three months of N9 premier Nokia released the first software update named PR 1.1 which contained a few bug fixes and new features namely:
* ability to control the music player via the lock screen
* ability to exchange/send links, contacts, documents using NFC
* support for horizontal mode - not present previously
* option to switch downward swipe motion to close application or minimize
* speed improvements to the WiFi module in 'n' network
* improvements to: QWERTY screen keyboard,notifications, browser, Bluetooth and many others


Nokia has announced the next update, named PR 1.2 which is planned to introduce 3500 improvements which include:
* folders on the home screen
* universal copy/paste
* faster codecs for video coded in H.264 standard
* USB On-The-Go which will allow various accessories to be attached such as keyboards, mice, and external memory even other phones and many other improvements.This is truly a milestone in gadget history.Life cannot be better than this. Just swipe your way off.

Nokia Belle update for smartphones to release early next year

In an official announcement last week Nokia revealed that Nokia Belle update for Nokia Smartphones will be released as early as February 2012. This update would be made available only for Anna compatible devices such as N8,C7,C6-01,E7 and X7. As mentioned in the previous article Belle's are here... currently  the operating system is running in Nokia 603,700,701.

This announcement brings about a huge cheer among the existing Anna users. If the current batch of Anna users receive the update, it will be their second update. It's quite unique because of the fact that those smartphone will have transitioned between three Smart Operating Systems.In fact a few units of N8,C7 and C6-01 are said to have the Nokia Belle pre-installed in them. Most probably Asia will be the first region to experience the Nokia Belle in Anna powered devices.

The Nokia Belle gained its reputation for being better than other OS operating under a lower a clock speed ensuring best battery life and enhanced performance.
Here's a video preview of Nokia Belle Update on N8

 

From the previews we get a glimpse of what the Nokia Belle is capable of. The incorporation of shortcut widgets and applications is a welcome move for Nokia Smartphones.The smooth functioning of Nokia Belle in N8 concludes that Symbian Belle can succeed in phones running under 1Ghz.

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.

The Anna Experience

This article is solely dedicated to Symbian Anna. Amid concerns regarding the sustainability of Nokia Symbian Platform, Nokia released the successor to Symbian^3, the Symbian Anna. The Symbian Anna had the label of trademark Symbian Operating systems having been built on the same technology. The Os is a hard core Symbian product having a new Symbian Os kernel integrated with hardware accelerated graphics. Mainly developed for the Smartphone generation, Anna runs only on touch-screen devices. It was released as an update to the existing Symbian^3 sunning devices such as N8,C7,C6-01,etc.

Naturally running on a mobile as great as the N8,expectations were high. And the latest installment of the Symbian OS didn't disappoint. The Symbian Anna provides a better utilization of hardware accelerated graphics,the missing link in predecessors. Existing Symbian^3 devices had the update to Anna. The Symbian Anna is aimed at providing a better smartphone experience. The trademark Kernel structure and third party allegiance continues to reflect in the Symbian Anna. The Symbian Anna offers better scrolling between menus and home screens. Anna retains the customary Nokia icons, lets face it in terms of usability Nokia icons can be even identified by everyone. There's more to Anna than Home screens, significantly the OS improves the quality of mobile experience by embedding flash lite4.0 and HTML5 enabled browsers. The customary browser of Nokia has been updated according to the OS. This has been done mainly due to inclusion of multi-touch features and Flash support. The inclusion of a touch sensitive QWERTY keypad improves the experience of Nokia. With all such advancements Nokia has taken intense care to make sure that the trademark feature of Nokia "The Battery Backup" remains complaint with the current Nokia standards and it doesnt disappoint. This is mainly due to the fact that Symbian Anna can perform smoothly even on a 600 Mhz with dedicated CPU time and GPU. Improvements have also been made in terms of ovi based apps and map based apps. In case of Ovi maps voice guidance attributes to navigation capabilties of the Anna. The improved Ovi store and sync features are a testament to the fact that the views of the customer plays an important role in Nokia Corp.




In terms of Apps there is no equivalent to Nokia. Numerous apps are available and many more still being developed. The introduction of high speed Qt based framework attributes to increase in number of apps. Being an open source collaboration one would expect security threats, but not in the anna. Nokia incorporates improved level of security for Anna through better certificate analysis and online verification.


The Symbian Anna is a example to the fact that there is more to come from the Largest Mobile Manufacturer in the world. If Nokia continues to develop Symbian based Operating systems such as The Symbian Anna, no one can topple the Finnish Company in terms of market share.

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.