Time to ditch Symbian?

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Owen

Symbian should have been ditched a long time ago. It's an archaic OS. Worse again, is now that Nokia have control of it, they're planning to make it prettier and keep it. Bad bad idea Nokia! Nokia have historically made some of the best hardware out there, but they stuck with resistive touchscreens when the world wanted capactive, and their insistence of sticking with Symbian will finish them off eventually. In a perfect world, a Nokia device with good hardware specs, and Android would be a killer device. It'll never happen though.

Davy

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Symbian should have been ditched a long time ago. It's an archaic OS. Worse again, is now that Nokia have control of it, they're planning to make it prettier and keep it. Bad bad idea Nokia! Nokia have historically made some of the best hardware out there, but they stuck with resistive touchscreens when the world wanted capactive, and their insistence of sticking with Symbian will finish them off eventually. In a perfect world, a Nokia device with good hardware specs, and Android would be a killer device. It'll never happen though.

What you have said is very true, but they have changed their ways albeit a lot later than they should have. The N97 is a perfect example of what went wrong, they would have been better of without it, as it did more damage tot eh brand than anything, I reckon their is a lot more android and iphone users because of it.

Where now they have the N8 and its pretty good in regard responsive OS and touchscreen. Its really what the N97 should have been. Their isnt lag, rebooting problems etc.

Captain, go checkout a live desire (if you can find one that is) and see what you think first off, if you dont like it straight off well then this discussion would mean anything. Going by your sig though, you dont seem impressed by nokia at the minute. I wouldn't do anything to quick, wait and get a good play got the C7 and see how you like it. Did you not like the E5?

Owen

I spent the best part of 12 years as a huge Nokia fan. From 96 I had an analogue 232 when they cost a fortune and was the only 088 phone that could handle data calls, then to the 2110i, from there to the original communicator, the 8110, 8110i, the 3110 (Yuck!), and a slew of handsets up to the 9000 communicator, n90, n93, n93i - I used to buy these things SIM free and spend up to 1k on them. I was obsessed by Nokia, and when the iPhone came out, I initially hated it. No keyboard, useless specs, poor reception, and very poor call quality (Actual sound quality, as opposed to signal strength) compared to any Nokia offering, but then I used an iPhone, and I got it. I got why Nokia were about to become irrelevant unless they changed their game.

The iPhone's out a long time now, and Android's been thrown into the mix. Nokia still don't get it, and are pushing forward with Meego and Symbian, none of which will ever find a home on the market, or will sell in huge numbers.

Even Windows Phone 7 has the potential to flop - between iOS and Android, no one needs another operating system. What they need is better handsets to run this stuff on, and more fancy OS/App stuff.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Davy

Captain Morgan wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I think you have answered your own question then when your using the words terrible and horrible

ChopShop

Captain Morgan wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yes.


/Thread.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

dr ro

Give me symbian anyday. Wouldn't consider an iphone. Looked into it when out originally came out as I was excited about getting one but it was way too restricted and controlled by apple. Still is. Got n95 instead. Don't like the look of Htc, too big, no soul! Sony e and samsung not on the radar. now with n8. very happy with it. Pis5es on i phone,

Venom

dr ro wrote: »

Give me symbian anyday. Wouldn't consider an iphone. Looked into it when out originally came out as I was excited about getting one but it was way too restricted and controlled by apple. Still is. Got n95 instead. Don't like the look of Htc, too big, no soul! Sony e and samsung not on the radar. now with n8. very happy with it. Pis5es on i phone,

Or if you are sane OP, go check out the Desire

Bluefoam

dr ro wrote: »

Don't like the look of Htc, too big, no soul!

That's a weird statement. HTC have lots of different sized phones & I would have thought one of their key selling points is the soul* they add. I'm a fan of android, but equally am a big fan of sense... I wouldn't associate Nokia with soul...

I got the N86 as a natural progression from the 6680 - while I had the latter for 5 years I can't see myself keeping the N86 for that long. It works very well as a phone and I also have a 16GB microSD in there for my music. But the app support seems disappointing. I also find the mandatory code signing a pain, having to sign apps with a test cert irritates me; with the 6680 I could throw whatever I wanted on it.

I guess I'll need to decide whether I go iOS or Android next time.

dr ro

Ovi works for your phone, if you have an n86 you'll be offered different apps than if you've an n8. Nokias apps have and still are improving

vibe666

symbian should be long dead and buried but for some reason nokia just won't let it die peacefully.

the n95 was a great phone (eventually, once they ironed out all the bugs) the n96 was just a slightly tarted up n95 with a few new bugs, but they lost all credibility with the n97.

i have an n900 now and it's great, but i won't be buying an N8 or an 'N' anything else for that matter if its got symbian on it, but if meego pulls something impressive out of its hat i might go for something running that.

that said, i just found out that the meego conference is on at the aviva stadium from monday to wednesday if anyone is inclined to take a look.

http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/item/12284_MeeGo_Conference_Day_1_Live.php

i actually don't even know if its open to anyone or not, so you might want to call first *if* you're interested to find out if they'll have you.

Tom Dunne

In the recent Engadget review of the N8, they basically said it was an impressive phone, let down only by the OS.

I don't think Symbian^3 can compete with Android, iOS (or even Maemo for that matter). It's old technology squished into new, which doesn't work as well as it could.

Just let it go, Nokia, let it go.

Venom

Nokia must hate making money as if they made an Android based phone it would be a sure fire hit imho.

coylemj

I have been with Nokia all along, recent models were E51 and now E55. I also have an iTouch so am well familiar with the app store and a brother of mine has the Samsung Galaxy S (Android) so I have a good idea of all three platforms.

The biggest gripe I have with Symbian is that there is almost nothing in the Ovi 'store', it contains an awful lot of padding with some URLs (web links) masquerading as apps plus several information providers with good apps on the iTunes store (Bloomberg for example) were obviously paid money to develop a Symbian version of their app and then abandoned it.

The other gripe is performance, the E51 took forever to boot up and while the E55 boots faster, I still resent the fact that you have to explicitly select 'Exit' when you want to cose an app, otherwise you can go into the main menu and discover that you have a pile of apps open without realising it.

The only plus I can think of for the E55 is the free maps but have you ever been in a strange city, whipped out the E55 or any other Nokia phone and waited for the built-in GPS to get a fix? On every other GPS I've owned the device stores satellite data (ephemerides) so that if you had it on within the past couple of hours and got a fix, the next time you switch it on it does a hot start and with a good view of the sky you should get a fix within seconds, Nokia don't do this so every start is a cold start. The result is that you end up advertising yourself as a lost tourist holding this heap of crap at arm's length waiting several minutes for a satellite fix.

jimmycrackcorm

Venom wrote: »

Nokia must hate making money as if they made an Android based phone it would be a sure fire hit imho.

+1. They make fantastic phones but won't do android out of pride as it would make them just another hardware manufacturer and nothing else.

chrislad

dr ro wrote: »

Give me symbian anyday. Wouldn't consider an iphone. Looked into it when out originally came out as I was excited about getting one but it was way too restricted and controlled by apple. Still is. Got n95 instead. Don't like the look of Htc, too big, no soul! Sony e and samsung not on the radar. now with n8. very happy with it. Pis5es on i phone,

That 'restriction' has over 100,000 apps, compared with Nokias 'unrestricted' 10,000 (and I'm probably being generous here) apps.

I don't get people complaining about Apple restricting. In every day use, it pretty much has no effect.

dr ro

When I originally looked at I phone it had no radio no blue tooth no multi tasking crap camera and only usable with I tunes. Each of those points was like another draw back and they eventually added up to no thanks not for me. While some of these points have been addressed, internet radio isn't good enough to replace fm radio. Camera is at where others were 4 years ago. Same for multi tasking. Bluetooth won't connect to anything not apple. Apart from browsing it didn't and doesn't have anything to tempt me.

Venom

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

+1. They make fantastic phones but won't do android out of pride as it would make them just another hardware manufacturer and nothing else.

But they are just another hardware manufacturer these days They used to have the name for very well built phones but the build quality on the 5800 I had was pretty meh and the N97 wasn't much better.

smegheadz

Symbian isn't dead.

The core is still powerful but the UI is still not up to scratch but with the new UI development that was meant to be S^4 but now will be an update as will all future developments will look really good. google S^4 screens.

Also from engadgets reviews and other american sites i take it with a pinch of salt, very pro apple and google down with nokia etc.
Engadget didn't mention that the only device that was able to recover the wp7 currupted sd card was none other then the nokia N8. no other os including linux,win xp,mac and tools on each of those were able to format the disc again so it was bricked.

Also the Nokia n8 and other symbian devices are not intended to compete with iphone and upper range androids. that will be the meego/meamo devices.

from what the op has said i think your mind has been made up before you even posted. give android a try but it has it's pro's and cons just like iphone and nokia devices. don't forget the palmpre2 is coming out soon.

Venom

smegheadz wrote: »

Symbian isn't dead.

The core is still powerful but the UI is still not up to scratch but with the new UI development that was meant to be S^4 but now will be an update as will all future developments will look really good. google S^4 screens.

Also from engadgets reviews and other american sites i take it with a pinch of salt, very pro apple and google down with nokia etc.
Engadget didn't mention that the only device that was able to recover the wp7 currupted sd card was none other then the nokia N8. no other os including linux,win xp,mac and tools on each of those were able to format the disc again so it was bricked.

Also the Nokia n8 and other symbian devices are not intended to compete with iphone and upper range androids. that will be the meego/meamo devices.

from what the op has said i think your mind has been made up before you even posted. give android a try but it has it's pro's and cons just like iphone and nokia devices. don't forget the palmpre2 is coming out soon.

The core is well past its sell by date nowadays and its always a case of what's coming to Symbian instead of what's actually here and usable.

Nokia is a very minor player in the states due to how the US cellular networks operate and is more an expensive niche option for those who do buy it.

If the N8 and other Symbian devices are not aimed at the iPhone/Android market then why are they priced the same as those competitors?

CyberGhost

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Symbian should have been ditched a long time ago. It's an archaic OS. Worse again, is now that Nokia have control of it, they're planning to make it prettier and keep it. Bad bad idea Nokia! Nokia have historically made some of the best hardware out there, but they stuck with resistive touchscreens when the world wanted capactive, and their insistence of sticking with Symbian will finish them off eventually. In a perfect world, a Nokia device with good hardware specs, and Android would be a killer device. It'll never happen though.

It'll never happen and there is a good reason why,

The battle nowadays is for the OS and SERVICES, if Nokia starts using Android, they become just another hardware manufacturer, competing with Samsung and HTC, the Asians will eat them alive in hardware manufacturing... and giving up on the service market segment to Android would crazy... what are they doing to do with their OVI services like the maps? They can't just give that away by adopting Android. Going Android and MS would way be a certain death for Nokia.

What they have to do is work very hard, hope and pray that they deliver the a great new Symbian UI update and MeeGo turns out to be fantastic in 2011, and even if, IF they manage to deliver Symbian update, MeeGo and Qt Dev tools in 2011, they will still not have an ecosystem and the dev interest anywhere near iOS and Android, that takes years and the way Android and iOS are going now, good luck catching up to them and stopping their momentum. In other words Nokia is in a deep **** but Android is not the answer.


What upsets me the most about Nokia is that they keep copying the bad things from Apple and Android, they keep taking away what makes them and Symbian a winner... the functionality, Symbian^3 lacks tons of options and settings in the music player previous Symbians had, the menu gets "reset" instead of remembering your old position(unless you Exit), Calendar lacks "Memo" function and "Meeting Request" functions, and there are many, many other things that they ruined, things that previous versions had. Somebody must be sabotaging Nokia from the inside... their development plan is terrible, they pretty much outsource different parts of the OS to different teams, so Symbian, instead of feeling like one whole integrated experience, feels like a Frankenstein that keeps losing parts.

smegheadz

The core is not dead, you might as well apply that to windows phone 7 then as it's running an outdated DEAD core. it's only really a UI change with wp7 still using the same core OS for it.

take some time to look up about what the strengths and weaknesses of symbian is compared it's competitors. it's even more interesting when you apply the same logic and look at strengths+weaknesses of meamo5 and meego to ios,android,webos 2.0 and rim os, don't forget wp7.

I like my gadgets and i liked the iphone untill i tried it and used my friends for a while. i liked the idea of andriod and followed it's progress and then used it for a while and think it's a better option to ios but not for me. symbian devices haven't been powerfull enough for me. but meamo5 wow that has some hackability to it but still lacks alot of things though. but i can see where they are heading with QT is going to be a smash hit. not just on mobile devices but on all operating systems. it's what java should have been.

anyway my best advice to someone who asks me what phone to get is to get what suits your needs and what you like the most after trying a few. forget review sites. just use it and see if it fits. if you want million apps for 99c android or iphone. if ur a linux head and wanna wardrive get n900, if you just want to send a txt on a physical keyboard and make a call get a dumb fone. simple as

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Venom

Captain Morgan wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You are.

smegheadz

just for someone who said there's no apps on nokias.

Ovi Store grows again! It’s not a surprise since content AND handsets are ramping up. Ovi Store downloads are now at 3 million a day or 1.065 Billion per year were Ovi Store NOT to grow for 365 days.

• Over 165 million Ovi Users, across more than 190 countries
• 250,000 new users every day
• 90% of visits lead to app download

• On average, each registered visitor downloads 2.6 apps (per what?)
• 92 developers have reached the 1-million+ download milestone each for their apps
• 1.5 million downloads of the Qt SDK in 2010
• 400,000 new developers have signed up with Forum Nokia over the last year

that 1.5million qt sdk downloads stands out to me. as this is what they will develop their apps to be usable on multiple nokia devices symbian/meego

if your going to get an android get a high spec one because lower end hardware is crap, you'll get lag on something and depending on the manufacturer they may stick on their own UI which can slow things down at times. Galaxy S or Droid 2 are examples of decent ones.

N8 has a crap web browser at the moment but the update is comming nov27th with the launch of the E71 which i would prefer over the N8 as i like a physical keyboard then just touch screen. the C7 has a lovely screen and keys+touch screen. it is a phone and it works. no fart apps and other gimmick apps. will have some but it won't be as enjoyable as the higher end devices. the C7 won't be a device you'd take out n say "check out this app" and show off some new thing. it's a solid phone which can go few days without recharging. it will have a tonne of out of box features and there will be usefull apps you can buy, i had 400+ apps and games on my n95 8gb and i loved it.

price wise i'd wait till january or around xmas as the deals will be going then. remember there's discount codes online you can use online to get really good discounts. i saved about £120stg on the n900 when it first came out, and that includes postage too.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

smegheadz

sharp are bringing out 14mp symbian ^3 camer phone sometime soon. but have to say when i used the camera on the n8 was amazing. it even beats some digital camera's my friends have haha. check out low light vid's and pics from it, great for nights out. if ya pay the extra get the n8 over the c7. but you could wait for the e71 which is out in nov 27 as far as i'm aware. it's got a physical keyboard and touch screen with clear black display.

there's a company in germany who build the phone you want to the spec you want. can't remember the site but sounds interesting be great to have something similar here. 12mp camera, A8 cpu, some gpu, resistive screen, physical querty keyboard and laser beams! duel boot meamo and android lol

Owen

Played with an n8 a friend got today when he signed up to emobile. Jesus Symbian is still a pig. We spent a good 5 minutes trying to get the handset to use his WiFi at work before his 3g connection, and it would not use the WiFi despite having no problems connecting to it.

I've never been so frustrated trying to do something so simple on a phone. Nokia have lost the plot. The hardware of it is gorgeous, but if the n8 had Android, it'd shine!