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.

Nokia Carla may release by Q3 this year

Nokia Carla, the next edition of Symbian OS might be released by Q3 this year. It is rumored that Nokia Smartphones powered by Carla will hit the stores as early as October this year. Nokia Carla is the successor to Nokia Belle released during Q3,2011.


Though there hasn't been any official confirmation from Nokia, rumor has it that Nokia Belle powered phones might be the first phones to run Nokia Carla. And later by Q4, other Belle powered devices are set to receive an update to Carla(Nokia N8,E6,E7,C6-01 and C7). Though secondary Belle powered devices are set to receive a trimmed version of Nokia Carla since they lack a 1Ghz process and NFC capability.

Also it can be said with certainty that the Nokia PureView will not  be the last Carla device. Nokia Pure View the successor to the best ever camera phone N8 is to be released this Monday at the MWC in Barcelona,Spain. The Pureview is already considered to be the most interesting cameraphone yet.Here's a snapshot from the teaser for PureView to be unveiled at the MWC.

There is however no news on the other platform Nokia Donna. Most probably Nokia Donna will also be released by the end of this year. An official announcement might be expected at the MWC. Stay tuned for more updates.

Nokia Belle update now available for anna users

After a long wait the Nokia Belle update is available for Nokia users formerly using Symbian Anna powered phones. Nokia began rolling out the firmware update for the N8,C6-01,c7,E7,E6 and 500. If you own any of the above phones your device will have a firmware update through Nokia Suite. It is highly recommended that the update is performed through the Nokia Suite rather than try to update it over the air.

This update addresses the concerns for a need to change in the Nokia Smartphones. Nokia Belle expands it horizons.It was formerly available only for three handsets namely the 700,701, and 603. As part of a strategy from Nokia to retain its Smartphone base the update which was released about 7 months later than the original Nokia Belle(previously known as Symbian Belle).


Nokia Belle comes with an array of features such as the number of home-screens, better navigation and widgets, improved interface. Almost all of the so called short comings of previous platforms have been address in this update.

The update is roughly 300 to 400 MB downloaded through the Nokia suite(3.3 or higher) so a secure and fast internet connection is a requirement. We will review the performance of the update in the coming posts

Symbian^3 devices now come with Nokia Belle out of the box

In an official twitter feed Nokia confirmed reports that Symbian Anna powered Smartphones will now come with the Nokia Belle update pre installed. Devices which are currently shipped come with Nokia Belle in most of the regions including Turkey and India.

Earlier last year there were many unconfirmed reports that Nokia was currently shipping the N8 with Nokia Belle out of the box in some regions. Anna powered smart phones N8,C7,E7,E6,C6-01,X7 and 500 will be getting this update.However, according to the tweets of the official Nokia feed availability of the updated handsets is subject to region and stock.

There has been no official word regarding rolling out the update for existing Anna running handsets,though it is expected early next month. The functionality and simplicity of Nokia Belle won accolades immediately after being released. This move from Nokia is aimed at boosting the smartphone sales running Symbian Operating systems. Although there is no official proof, but few of the Anna powered devices will contain the revolutionary NFC technology.

In an earlier article Belle's are here.. we reviewed the features of Nokia Belle. And the success stories of Belle powered devices such as 700,701 and 603 prove the quality of a Symbian OS. The Symbian Smartphone division of Nokia is expected to produce a boost in sales. Nokia Belle is the latest version of Symbian OS yet.

    

Nokia buys Smarterphone

In a move to retain its market, Nokia has acquired  the Norwegian company Smarterphone AS,specializing in mobile operating systems. The deal was finalized last year for an undisclosed sum. The Oslo based company licenses a touchscreen Featurephone OS for budget range models. The company is known to offer the basic smartphone experience for feature phone customers.

The budget range customers have been the stronghold of Nokia for a long time. The series 40 platform has been ruling the market in the case of basic phones. Even being a decade old series 40 platform is still successful. The Finnish mobile manufacturer boasts of a wide range of platforms for mobile phones such as the Series 40,Series 60,Symbian Anna,Nokia Belle,WindowsPhone, Meego,and  Meamo. The SmarterPhone OS comes as a welcome addition to the arsenal of Nokia Operating systems. The main aim of Nokia in the acquisition is to retain  the larger base of Mid-range customers, said to be around 1 billion consumers.

The Smarterphone OS is programmed in Scheme for UI and C++ for core. The latest version is the Smarterphone OS 3.2. The Operating System comes with a handful of licences including Compal. Most notably OpenWave's V7 software. The system boast of appealing features such as the fan out radial menu and user friendly social networking. Unlike the Nokia Operating sytems the Smarterphone OS is a Closed source Software and is based on a real time kernel.

The OS is said to support most of the leading platforms including the ARM Broadcom and Qualcom. The architecture of the OS is based on model view controller desgin that ease the implementation of variations with minimal effort. 

This investment can benefit Nokia in the long run to establish a market for Budget range smartphones. The Smarterphone OS can help improve the existing Series 40 platform and take it to the next level. Nokia has already released the Asha sisters in the  60-90 Euro price range. The Asha series already has a positive response from the users. With the addition of a new operating system to the existing system, it is bound to offer a better smartphone experience within budget.

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.