Nokia is taking its time with the Nokia N8, its first phone to run Symbian 3, in the hope it won't have the same birthing pains as the Nokia N97. But the Nokia C7-00 -- the second, more affordable Symbian 3 phone -- is already leaking all over the Russian Mobile-Review blog.
Expect the C7 to have an 8-megapixel camera with two LED photo lights, and an 89mm (3.5-inch) AMOLED screen. Despite the bump to version 3 of Symbian, the user interface on the C7 looks similar to what we've seen on the N97 and other recent Nokia touchscreen phones.
The images purportedly show a prototype C7, however, so it's possible that it could get some tweaking before launch. The C7 also adds multi-touch zoom, which we've missed on other Nokias.
The C7 doesn't skimp on the great connectivity that we've come to expect from Nokia. It has Wi-Fi, including support for the latest 802.11n standard, and Bluetooth 3.0, which should make for faster data-transfer speeds than older Bluetooth versions.
The C7 keeps things ticking over for Nokia, offering a more affordable alternative to the flagship N8. But smart phones running Google's Android OS are getting cheaper, better-looking and smarter every day, so Nokia's efforts to squeeze out Symbian 3 may be a case of too little, too late.
Are you tempted by the C7 or has the Finnish legend run out of steam? Speak your brain below.
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Mark Anderson 26 August, 2010 12:52
Ok, Flora. Specifically what makes those low to mid cost Android handsets a better option than the C7?
A lot of people wax on about why Android is better than Symbian but when I ask them to specify exactly what makes it better it usually involves a lot of nervous muttering and staring at one's shoes.
Now don't get me wrong, I think Android is a nice alternative but let's face facts - it's also pretty basic and pretty ugly without a skin which is why HTC and Moto have had to provide one. The Symbian^1 UI is a bit clunky to say the least but Symbian^3 seems to have addressed that.
So what is it?
Apps? Nope. Stores are ten a penny, 99% of apps are crap and the ones that aren't are generally cross platform.
Build Quality? Nope. Nokia - hideously cheap phones aside - have good build quality.
Feature set? Nope. The C7 has an equivalent or better feature set than, say, the Wildfire or Xperia Mini.
OS? Nope. Symbian is lighter and more efficient than Android - no, fanboys, it is. Don't argue - although Android has plus points like better resolution support (at least until Symbian^4) .
So that brings us down to the 'shiny and new' factor, doesn't it?
I'm going to bet you one thing though - this is going to sell more units than any individual Android handset released in the UK.
billfred 26 August, 2010 14:38
get over it Mark, symbian sucks.
billfred 26 August, 2010 14:40
please, please, just do something awesome with meego!
Basil 26 August, 2010 14:53
Mark, these days, the importance of design is becoming more and more pertinent.
Nokia / Symbian's main shortcoming in my eyes at least is their ruining some very well specked phones with a total eyesore that isn't consistent (double tap here, single tap there), and offers a shady user experience across manufacturers (ie. the i8910's lack of Ovi support).
More and more people are seeing Android as akin to the universalisation of the micro USB. Ok, that may have been a little OTT, but nevertheless, it provides the foundations for a consistent user, facilitates manufacturer customisation and is constantly improving incrementally, in contrast to Symbian's painfully slow roll out of updates.
So while Nokia are churning out some amazing hardware (I'm salivating over the N8 camera - XENON FLASH), Symbian just isn't current anymore.
skapete 26 August, 2010 15:01
For me, the one thing that cheaper android phones beat cheap symbian/ other touchscreen phones is at responsiveness. Having owned a N97 Mini I found despite its impressive spec sheet the sheer sluggishness of the resistive touchscreen and clunky UI made it nigh on impossible to use. Even with the capacitive screens that the X6 and C7 have they are still very non user friendly compared to android. Until Nokia design a UI only for touch (like android) and not push touch onto a non touch UI their phones will continue to be terrible.
Mark Anderson 26 August, 2010 16:04
@billfred.
Ah. Another shoe gazer I see. Next.
@Basil
Symbian^3 removes the whole double tap model. As for consistency, tell that to Motorola Dext owners plus the other Android sets that aren't upgradable. Nokia are also pretty good with support. That's why the N95 is on V31 firmware, the 5800 on v51 and the X6 on v21.
To be honest, saying something isn't current when you're not even talking about the most recent iteration - your problems appear to be with Symbian^1's annoying UI - doesn't really feel like a wise thing to do.
@skapete
Totally agree. Capacitive screens are more responsive than resistive screens. Less accurate, true, but more pleasant to use. I have an X6 and the double tap, silly settings menu and network messages are a bit annoying compared to Android. The C7, however, uses Symbian^3 which does not have these issues so unless you've used one how can you comment that it doesn't compare?
I'd also point out that these are UI issues, not OS issues.
So, that's my point really. People saying that Symbian is crap when they:
a) Don't appear to have used Symbian^3
b) Mainly seem to have issues with the UI of Symbian^1
They're not the same thing folks.
billfred 26 August, 2010 16:42
"99% of apps are crap" enough said, and are they in one easy to find location - yeah the ovi store - oh wait ...
c'mon dude, ^3 is what s60 should have been, it made it usable, workable and consistent. So say if this was two years ago, fantastic. But it's not.
Bring on the N9!
Basil 26 August, 2010 16:56
"Symbian^3 removes the whole double tap model."
That's part of the point - Symbian's playing catchup with the other touchscreen systems and it's been doing it since V5 was put out. It's taken this long to sort something out that should've been done in a simple firmware update.
Also - design-wise, symbian's dated and that's totally true of the current iteration.
From the font to the cluttered homescreen, it just hasn't moved forward.
In turn - I totally stand by saying Symbian still isn't current. Yes, the new iteration does current things, but how it does them matters just as much as what it does.
Mark Anderson 26 August, 2010 19:32
@billfred
Yes. Ovi store. Or GetJar. Or Google. Or pre-installed.
Can I point out that I don't think Symbian^3 is fantastic? It is, however, comparable which is all it needs to be.
@Basil
Well yes... and now it's caught up. Glad that issue's resolved and we can't say that Symbian lags any more. As for being 'dated' I'd point out that if you don't like the default icons you can always download one of the thousands of other themes out there. There are also three homescreens all of which are fully cusomisable so it can be as cluttered or uncluttered as you want it to be... kind of like Android.
So... still waiting for an explanation as to why Android is better.
mlee2808 26 August, 2010 20:49
well said Mark.
anonymous 26 August, 2010 21:33
I wouldn't attempt to prejudge the C7 or the N8 as both sound like capable offerings. For one, I'm looking forward to Symbian reclaiming some of its prestige.
Why Android appears - and I can say this as a none-Android user - to be better is that it was cross-platform, apparently consistent and 'pretty' and well developed for, almost right away. It also piggy-backed on a range of phone manufacturers willing to put their efforts into challenging Apple and by default usurping Nokia.
These manufacturers came along with 1Ghz processors, big, capacitive screens; and with Android, HTC being a great example, they could overlay their own touch and feel to improve the user experience - without lag.
Compare this to Nokia's flagship N97. I was a huge fan of this phone in its development. It 'sounded' like an iPhone killer. 32Gb of memory... 5 Megapixel Camera... Touch and Qwerty... GPS & Nokia Maps (later to be Ovi maps and free). My N95 was so reliable and well-weathered that the N97 couldn't fail to provide a better experience - I was and remain disappointed.
For the first time in 5 or 6 years, I'm seriously considering avoiding the next Nokias. On paper, yet again, the specs sound first-class. To me, Nokia's failings have not been all software related or all hardware related, but they have been their own. The poor lack of Phone memory on the N97, results in regular 'out of memory' issues. The software (after so many hopeful, delayed further by Vodafone, updates) regular freezes - once whilst trying to make a call - resulting in numerous phone restarts (I mean taking the back off, battery out, back in, turn back on). Note, that this will not be possible on the N8...
I hope Nokia has fixed it's flaws. The fact that N8 may be the first and last 'premium' Nokia handset to sport Symbian^3 does not fill me with confidence. For me, it's the phone the N97 could have been, 18 mths too late.
Basil 27 August, 2010 00:31
Mark, in having 'caught up' as you put it, Symbian^3 is still a step behind as it's not even out yet.
The cluttered widget chunking format of the home screens can't be re-skinned to my knowledge.
From a design perspective, it looks busy and blocky - even down to the soft-key identifiers. Android handsets home screens look infinitely more spacious and inviting, even when they have more content on them - and while these aren't specs, they're intangibles, a LOT of consumers buy based on intangibles. Plus, plenty of time-poor people won't be bothered with re-skinning their phones and will expect an end-solution out of the box, aesthetics and all.
It's not really innovative either - and that's something I don't think anyone can argue. It's not particularly attractive (albeit that’s an opinion). Based on the adoption issue, less people will be developing apps for it than other OSs, and no matter what you say – apps sell phones.
While it may sound like I've made my mind up and am being argumentative, I'm not writing Symbian^3 off - I hope it's fantastic as I'd really love a good snapper on my phone (re: the N8).
Thus far however, from everything I’ve seen on the subject, it's always been the hardware that's made me go "ooh", not the Symbian, in fact, quite the opposite.
Mark Anderson 27 August, 2010 01:06
@Paul
The N97 was horrible. No question about that and I wouldn't blame anyone for telling Nokia where to go after that debacle. Android isn't really cross platform though - it's cross manufacturer in exactly the same way as Symbian^1 was with Nokia, Sony and Samsung. As for development, yup that's true but as I've mentioned app stores are ten a penny now and that differentiation has gone.
Incidentally on the N8 you hold down the power button for five seconds to re-set in exactly the same way you do with a Macbook.
Mark Anderson 27 August, 2010 01:06
@Basil
I don't think you're being argumentative but you are wrong - the homescreens can be reskinned. They're just themes and icons. I do agree that intangibles and 'the look' matter but then you might want to question why Nokia's less than glamorous handsets outsell Android by four to one. Perhaps familiarity is valued even more than glamour? You might also want to think why Android's most successful handsets have all had proprietary skins on them.
As for innovation... well how many ways do you think there are to arrange a large format touchscreen phone? There hasn't been any innovation in this format since Apple introduced multi-touch and the app store on the iPhone 3 years ago. Android certainly hasn't bought anything new to the party - unless you care to name it - nor, frankly, has Apple. Why would you expect Nokia to and, more to the point, why do they need to?
On the subject of apps, they sell some phones to some people. They are not generally the main sales driver though - people do not buy iPhones because of Angry Birds for example - and even then app stores are pretty much cookie cutter clones now or will be in the next wee while. You should also ask yourself why a platform which is over ten years old has less development activity (although this will change with Qt) than ones which are only two to three year old given the limited nature of what's viable as an application even if that were true (it isn't - Symbian still has by far the biggest developer community out of all the mobile platforms).
It all comes back to my first point - no-one has as yet been able to point out why Android is better than Symbian. What people have pointed out is that the Symbian^1 UI was awkward, that previous Nokia touchscreens have been poorly thought out Symbian^3 looks old fashioned to some and familiar to a lot of others. The bottom line is that Android 2.2 simply isn't better or worse than Symbian^3 - it does some things better and other things not so well.
I think Symbian's biggest problem is that it's seen as your dad's mobile OS. It's not 'with it' or 'down with the kids' and that is a huge issue for Nokia to overcome with some segments of the market. That said, it's also very familiar to nearly half the phone buying public and a lot of people value familiarity. Nokia have obviously decided that the latter is more important than the former - i think they're right because trends are transitory and habits are pretty permanent.
anonymous 27 August, 2010 01:14
I must say that I was *this close* to selling my N97-00 and moving to Android. Like many, I'm frustrated with the RAM in this device. This has been covered many times by many different dissatisfied customers.
I even had some auctions for Android phones I was watching on eBay. But after doing research, I discovered that Android has some traps. The entry level phones, such as the HTC Wildfire, have such a low res screen that the Android Marketplace will filter out a lot of the "cool" apps because your phone specs aren't up to the grade. And as far as upgrades go, you may be out of luck when a new version of Android comes out because it won't be compatible with your phone's specs.
At least with Symbian^3 devices, the playing field is level. Consistent OS and hardware means developers can squeeze out the maximum from the device. IMHO you can compare the argument to video game consoles. Think about the games available at the launch of the PlayStation 2. Now think about what they were able to achieve with the console after a year. After 2 years. They could optimise the software to run the most efficiently on a consistent platform. I see S^3 like this.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I will be waiting for the N8.
As far as the user interface goes, you can download apps for S60v5 phones such as SPB Mobile Shell that abstract the droll Symbian interface, and turn it into something that sounds quite similar to the S^3 interface. The problem is that these take up precious RAM. I'm running Mobile Shell, and I'm lucky if I can have Socially running and open a link from twitter before *both* applications crash. :(
Basil 27 August, 2010 04:14
Regarding the home-screen, I’m pretty sure I’m right insofar as the user can't rearrange their home-screen widgets more organically – i.e. outside the ugly grid format.
Nokia’s more budget handsets outsell Android 4 to 1 for many reasons, not least of all because they’re cheaper and are aimed at a market Android isn’t even competing for. They’re also familiar, yes, and that is important, but I’d hazard a guess that it is less important in a smart-phone buying market where the user might be a bit more savvy than to rest on familiarity alone.
Android’s innovation came in the form of delivering an open-source touch screen OS that provided decent app support across a range of hand-sets and doing it well. It’s not a case of re-inventing the wheel, just being the first to make a simple formula actually work. It took a while, but Google did it - Symbian failed as did WinMo.
As for your point: “no-one has as yet been able to point out why Android is better than Symbianâ€, that’s simply not true.
- A far better looking, more modern interface
- Manufacturer customisations offers consumers greater choice – as you mentioned, HTC Sense, what a pleasure to use
- On a much larger choice of handsets
- Better app support – I’ve got an S60 device – no matter how great Symbian developers are, getting apps is a pain in the tail compared to Android - FACT
- Better resolution support
- The delivered promise of incremental updates that actually make a difference (admittedly handset dependent)
In turn, agree or don't, that's why for me at least Android is better than the promise of Symbian ^3.
Mark Anderson 27 August, 2010 08:27
@Basil
Symbian^3 operates on panels, not a fixed grid.
Nokia and Android's mid range phones do compete in the same segment - the Pulse, Tattoo, Legend, Hero, Dext, etc are up against the X6, 5800, 5230, etc and they get outsold comprehensively. They are competing for the same market. What Nokia doesn't have is a high end competitor to the Desire. Yet.
Symbian is an open source OS that will deliver a touch experience with decent application support. WinMo also did this so I'm afraid Android are not being innovative here. They did it better in terms of user experience but that's a different thing. That said, if Ovi is servicing 1.7 million downloads a day plus whatever GetJar is doing and both stores have higher traffic than the Android store plus, of course, Symbian - even with its present clunky UI - sells more touchscreen smartphones than Android then how has it failed?
Finally, your criteria:
A better looking, more modern interface - firstly that's subjective, secondly it's a UI not an OS, thirdly Android's UI is mutable as is Symbian's depending on the manufacturer.
Manufacturer customisations offer consumers greater choice - this is a function of how the manufacturer presents the OS. Samsung, Sony, Fujitsu and Nokia all offer different variants of a UI which, once again, is what Sense is - it's not the OS.
On a much larger choice of handsets - again that's a function of manufacture, not the OS. Symbian can be used on multiple manufacturer's units to. So, no, not a function of OS.
Better App support - Possibly. That means their store is easier to use. Again this is not a function of the OS. I'd also argue that your point is subjective - Ovi was crap to start with but is pretty decent now.
Better resolution support - Yes, I mentioned this in first post. Symbian^4 will fix this by moving to Direct Ui and not AVKON. On the other hand Symbian has much better power and task management.
Incremental updates - Again as I've mentioned, Nokia deliver incremental updates for their popular handsets - that's why the 5800 is on v51 firmware. Over the course of the handsets life that means full kinetic scrolling, camera improvements, etc which do make a real difference. This is naturally different from Android's 'full OS' updates, however we know - as with iOS - that phones running previous versions will not be able to support all the features. A firmware model on the other hand addresses the individual handset and ensures that it does.
anonymous 27 August, 2010 10:15
Fantastic discussion, and well worth having. Exactly why has Nokia fallen out of favour while Android seems to get all the love?
The answer is usability. (There are market and business answers too, but from my consumer perspective.) The same reason why the first iPhone was a spectacular success, although it lacked umpteeen features that Nokias had had for years.
I'm not talking about 'glamour' or being 'down with the kids'. I'm talking about the pure pleasure of using a gadget that feels like it makes your life easier, not harder. There's no doubt that Nokia never skimps on features -- but wringing those features out of the phone is no pleasure.
I'll give you an example. The Ovi store has made getting apps on Nokias easier. But installing an app still takes several steps through confusing, obtuse approval dialogues. And once the app is on the phone, it's not always easy to find in the multi-layered folder structure of the UI. Another example that pops to mind is connecting to a Wi-Fi network that has a landing page. The feature is present; the Wi-Fi hardware on the phone is good; but the software makes it a confusing, repetitive faff.
Android isn't perfect in this department. Things like mounting the SD card over USB are too techy, IMO. But it's getting better and better, and occasionally very good UIs like HTC Sense help too.
That's not to say that Nokia won't continue to be a huge seller world-wide. Their non-smart phones are as good as ever. But in the UK, and among smart phones, they are losing their grip, and they know it. I think anyone who had a trusty Nokia over the last ten years (which is most of us) feels sympathy with the brand. But every Nokia employee will tell you that they have to pull their socks up. I don't think that Symbian 3 goes far enough -- even the Symbian foundation says, don't get too excited, it's not a huge change.
Motorola had to strangle all its phones in the crib to reboot its flagging fortunes. Nokia (not to mention Sony Ericsson) isn't willing to do the same. Let's hope that it can revive its smart phones before it's too late. I'm rooting for it personally!
Mark Anderson 27 August, 2010 16:55
Flora, I take your point and I'd agree if we were talking about Symbian^1. The WiFi connection section can be a bit of a pain - although I would just go in through connectivity and scan from there. It's really easy, accessible from the home screen and over in a couple of taps on an X6.
Again I go back to the point that app stores are, or very shortly will be, cookie cutter clones of each other with similar ease of use. At the moment Ovi's about 60-70% of the way there and Symbian^3 removes most of the install messages (apart from the ones that need to be there) with the files all going by default to the Installed Apps folder as they do in the X6.
The key point is Symbian, like Android, is getting better. Symbian^3 isn't Symbian^1 (actually Symbian^1 isn't really even Symbian^1 any more - it's much better than it was in early 2009). It's not a giant leap forward, that's true, but it does what it's meant to do - improve the user experience and make it easier to use. Symbian^4 will make it easier still. This is absolutely analogous to Android's move through Cupcake, Donut, Eclair and now to Froyo and I guess that's the puzzling thing - Android get the credit for improving their OS, Symbian don't.
As for Moto, they bet the farm on one style of trendy phone and nearly died (and still might) when fashions changed. Nokia's phone division on the other hand has made a solid profit every quarter for the last ten years. It has also increased its market share over the last three quarters when others (Apple and RIM) have stagnated - and all with no real presence in the US market. If you had a business that made close to a billion dollar's profit every quarter and which was actually increasing sales volume despite not operating in the fastest growing market would you strangle it in the crib? I'm not sure you would.
Finally, if you want something new there's MeeGo and the N9. Nokia have the scale and the strategy to both maintain the familiar and develop the new which is what they've been doing for the last couple of years.
Anonymous 29 August, 2010 14:52
Adil W
I have used Symbian since my first 7650, and never changed to another OS, reason being that i use the device principally for business and Symbian offers the reliability, familiar interface and upgrades to a business user. I have avoided the touch screen Nokia devices so far because of their poor screens, capacitive and resisitive. Nokia's implementation of touch leaves a lot to be desired. Try typing "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" on an X6 using the qwerty keypad and you will find out what i mean
I hope Nokia really delivers the user friendliness that comes with an Iphone, otherwise Nokia is going to go the blackberry way, commands repeat sales more from customer loyalty instead of product innovation.
A great OS for Keypad devices, but horrible porting to touch screen devices.I am holding on to my E72 for a long time, but i cannot guarantee that the next device will carry the same brand!!
Anonymous 30 August, 2010 01:26
All the above comments are interesting but let's consider where Nokia/SE Symbian phones have advantages over Android.
1. They hold signal and let you make a call in nearly all circumstances. (To be fair Moto's are pretty good at this but HTC and Samsung aren't in the same league for radio design)
2. They have decent Bluetooth implementations so you can send files without using a cable.
3. They have a robust Profiles system built in and accessible from a short tap on the power button
4. They are much MUCH more efficient in their use of data which tends to mean better battery life
5. They allow you to use cloud services from which ever provider you want. There is no attempt to lock you into the manufacturer's services.
Anonymous 30 August, 2010 13:57
nokia forever. waiting for the n8
Anonymous 31 August, 2010 13:55
I think Nokia are a little late in addressing the AMOLED issue. I also agree that they are loosing a lot of their competitive edge. For example, if they had followed through with their press releases with the E5 (there is an 80 euro difference between actual price and the expected retail price from the Nokia press releases), then an affordable Nokia with wifi would finally have come out. The fact is that so many other phone makers today offer wifi + hsdpa at prices which are far lower than Nokia's, despite the fact that Nokias are far more laggy than most other phones.
Anonymous 6 September, 2010 20:09
@Mark Anderson
How much is NOKIA paying you to "defend" their honor? LOL. Defending Nokia's outdated Symbian OS is like denying that the world is round. You don't have to be a genius to figure it out.
In order to figure out how OUTDATED Symbian really IS, go try open a GALAXY S:
1) Integration -- Androids can integrate your chat, email, IM, the works in 1 place. How neat is that? The only thing Symbian has done is: push-email. for free through Ovi mail. Hello?
2) E-BOOKS -- have you ever heard of e-books and e-book readers? Androids have Aldiko, etc. through which you can download all the ebooks conveniently from 1 site, and ALL will both be FREE and CUSTOMIZABLE. With NOKIA however, the only way you gonna get e-books is to download INDIVIDUAL E-BOOKS from Ovi store. IF AND IF you have the patience to do this, you still have to content yourself with about ONLY 10 e-books that the Ovi Store CAN OFFER. TEN!!!! -- Sherlock holmes, Pride & Prejudice, Tom Sawyer are just a few... BORING.
3) Web-Browsing is a pain in the ass with Nokia -- I have a Nokia 5230, which has the SAME processor as the N97 though being cheaper by 200% (suckers!) . I tell ya, I had to control myself FIVE TIMES from smashing that phone to the wall EVERYTIME I go on-line. Good thing I didn't get the N97 coz I will kill NOKIA if I got the same performance from a very expensive phone!!!
Though the processor was at fault there, the Symbian OS didn't help either. The iPhone 3GS is the snappiest smartphone, but it was chugging along on a measly 680 Mhz processor. Definitely the iOS compensated for the slower processor. The same cannot be said for Symbian. Its as if the developers only touched the menu options, then went off for lunch, and then came back and DECLARED the OS as complete. LOL.
4) LOTS of areas in Symbian DESPERATELY need to be INTUITIVE, and TWEAK-ABLE. iPhone can boast that you can turn on/off 3G in certain apps, like GPS, and save data consumption. Android can boast that you can swipe left to delete a contact, swipe right to call / text a contact. What can Symbian offer?? ZERO.
5) LIVE WALLPAPERS. Nokia doesn't have one, but ANDROID has dozens. BTW, this feature is OS-dependent.
6) Basically, Symbian OS works like a more-glamorous FEATURE PHONE. It gives you emails, phone calls, SMS, internet, etc. with NO FRILLS. Even the Calendar never graduated to beyond "meetings, to-do, and memo"... SUCKS.