Nokia dishes out Symbian 3 phones, holds back on MeeGo device

by Ariel Tam
Updated 01:00 PM Sep 15, 2010

A quartet of smartphones running on Nokia's latest Symbian 3 open-source operating system (OS) took the spotlight at Nokia World 2010 in London on Tuesday. And those expecting a MeeGo device announcement - borne from the February marriage of Nokia and Intel's respective Maemo and Moblin Linux platforms - would have to patiently wait for an update later this year.

For now, Nokia appears to be banking on Symbian 3 to counter the rise of Apple, Google and RIM in the lucrative and cut-throat smartphone arena. While Symbian took the lead in smartphone OSes in the second quarter of the year according to Gartner, its 41.2 per cent market share represented a marked decline compared to its 51.0 per cent share in the same quarter last year. Android, on the other hand, has blossomed dramatically from 1.8 per cent to 17.2 per cent, making it the third most popular after the Blackberry OS (18.2 per cent). The Symbian 3 phones - N8, E7, C7 and C6 - signal Nokia's hope of wresting back a greater cut of the mobile OS pie, and the Finnish company is aiming to ship more than 50 million new Symbian phones.

The phones support multiple home screens, visual multitasking and gesture-based navigation, and are integrated with Qt, Nokia's application development framework that allows developers to build apps once and deploy them across open software platforms.

Nokia is also throwing in free satellite navigation software with Ovi Maps walk-and-drive voice-guided navigation, as well as Web TV services for users to get their goggle box fix of programmes on channels such as CNN and National Geographic. We take a closer look at the Symbian 3 offerings.



Nokia E7

The E7 is the latest modern-day version of what Nokia calls one of its "most iconic and loved devices", the Nokia 9000 Communicator, introduced in 1996.

And just like the first Communicator, the E7's not the most petite of phones. But with a profile of 13.6mm, it is reasonably svelte. The phone's designed to help the business professional to manage his life on the go, and sports a four-inch capacitive touchscreen and a robust slide-out full Qwerty keyboard. The Amoled screen's blessed with what Nokia calls ClearBlack technology, which touts a polariser that removes unwanted reflection, delivering a higher contrast level and better outdoor visibility while consuming less power.

Mail for Exchange support gives you real-time access to corporate email systems, and you can read and edit documents like Powerpoint files on the go. Nokia has pre-loaded a raft of business-centric apps to help you along, such as QuickOffice and F-Secure Anti-theft.

Other features include an 8-megapixel camera capable of high-definition 720p video recording, an HDMI port for connection to your home theatre system, and security options such as device lock and wipe.

Besides grey and white, the phone comes in not-too-serious hues of green, blue and orange. The phone will be launched in the fourth quarter of the year.



Nokia N8

Securing bragging rights as the first phone to run on Symbian 3 and announced in April this year, the N8 is a power-packed number sporting a 12-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and Xenon flash, as well as Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. At Nokia World, the company showed off spectacular photos taken in Singapore on the N8 and played a movie trailer of Tron: Legacy off the phone on huge screens via an HDMI cable.

A 3.5-inch widescreen capacitive touch display takes up the bulk of the phone's front façade. It supports multi-touch, and you get three customisable home screens that you can navigate with a speedy swipe of the finger.

The N8 has 16GB of internal storage, which can be beefed up to 48GB with a microSD card.

The phone comes in five shades - grey, silver, green, blue and orange - and will be available in Singapore by October.



Nokia C6

If you fancy the stainless steel-and-glass aesthetic, you might like the Nokia C6. Social network buffs can post and view real-time updates on Facebook and Twitter on the 3.2-inch ClearBlack-powered touchscreen, and synchronise events from their social networks to the phone calendar. Internal memory's on the pithy side at 340MB, but that can be augmented by a 32GB microSD card. Only two colour choices are available - silver and black. Both the C6 and C7 will be available before the end of the year.










Nokia C7

The C7 is the more powerful cousin of the C6 and sports a 3.5-inch touchscreen and a trim profile of 10.5mm. Like the C6, this phone delivers real-time updates from social networks like Twitter, and you can snap a photo, tag it with your location and upload it to Facebook in a single click. The C7 also has the honour of being what Nokia says is the first mobile device to use non-toxic bio-paint. We wouldn't quite call it the "sleekest, smoothest device in the world" like Nokia did, but we do agree that it is one respectable-looking phone. You get one more colour option besides silver and black - brown.



Navigating a gold mine

With the abrupt change in leadership announced last week, where former president of Microsoft's Business Division Stephen Elop will replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as Nokia's chief executive on Sept 20, all eyes were on the Nokia World 2010 conference as industry players look for hints of the direction Nokia is heading.

One of the key areas Nokia is devoting its energy on is the mobile navigation market. The company has invested substantially in this area, including a US$8.1 billion acquisition of digital map information provider Navteq in 2008. Nokia predicts that by 2013, more than 800 million people around the world will be using GPS-enabled devices and related services.

Nokia's popular Ovi Maps service is now available for 78 countries in 46 languages. The latest beta release of Ovi Maps, available for download since Tuesday, offers dedicated pedestrian routes, real-time traffic, visibility to subways and trains in 85 cities as well as enhanced search and location-sharing capabilities.

"The next generation of mobility innovation will all be about experiences that result from leveraging the fact that you know your location," said Niklas Savander, Nokia's executive vice-president (Markets). "It is a space we intend to own."

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