Symbian Smartphone Show 2007

Well, on Tuesday and Wednesday I attended the Symbian Smartphone Show which, while not being the largest show I've seen, did have quite a few very impressive partners show they latest offerings.

Of course you had the big boys there, such Goliath's as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung, but also the S60 Forum was there, UIQ.

 

Overall I expected to be impressed with Nokia, Sony Ericsson was strong as well... the surprises were both Samsung and Motorola who both showed their new handsets based on Symbian OS (with Motorola using UIQ who they just acquired a majority stake in). It's good to see these companies agree on a standard OS allowing developers to create some truly wonderful applications expanding the mobile market. I have nothing against Palm, Windows Mobile or even Blackberry for that matter, but this was the Symbian Smartphone Show and I do believe that from what I have seen so far, the Symbian platform does offer the most flexibility, powerful functions and open developer base of all these systems.

 

I went around, talked to people and made new friends. I can see that the mobile market is well, and expending... things are now really starting to get interesting.

The obvious major thing I noticed at the show was the move by two very large mobile phone companies (Samsung and Motorola) to the Symbian OS (finally). This makes me think that LG might be the next company to make the move, but for now... I'm just happy that these companies are finally realizing the advantages of using the same OS both from a cost point of view as well as support (and I mean development from outside none-employee developers).

There were also many companies showing various solution that run Symbian based phones. Obviously that number will grow as more and more companies put the OS into their mobile phones. I really feel this is going to be great for the mobile phone market and finally allow it to grow in a way we've been waiting for.

 

 

Now I can't wait for next years show, which I suspect will be MUCH bigger. I see Symbian reaching a major turning point now that so many players are onboard and becoming the major mobile OS moving forward. Question is, how will future versions of Symbian handle the multimedia needs of new devices... or new input methods (such as the new push for touch screen) will remain to be seen. But I have faith that Symbian will work very closely with the large vendors to make sure their OS is properly implemented and supported. The mobile revolution is upon us! :-)

New N95 (8GB), N81, and E51

I'm happy to say I got a chance to use the new Nokia phones which will be coming out in the near future. While these were still prototypes they gave me a very good indication what to expect from the end product.

Both the N95 and N81 come with a built in 8GB of RAM already inside the phone. What this means is that they do not have memory card extension slots (though I'm not sure if I'd really need on having 8GB to work with). They both offer the latest version of the S60 3rd series OS, with Ngage functionality, WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth 2.1. The N95 still has the 5MB Carl Zeiss camera while the N81 has the much smaller 2MB standard camera. Both look good though I wasn't very impressed with the thickness of the N81, it was nearly as thick as the N95 (which is a more powerful device). Both phones offer standard mini audio jacks (take note iPhone) and while the N95 continues to have a standard size USB port at the bottom, the N81 now uses the mini-usb port instead (the idea is that Nokia would like to see the mini-usb port become the standard in all future phones, an idea I don't particularly like).

Then there was the E51. This is the direct replacement to the E50 which was a good phone. The list of improvements though... was very impressive. The E51 now offers 3G, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, a much cleaner display, and much faster performance, all in a very slim package. The 2MB camera is standard and more than enough for most business users. I loved the form factor and thought it was a very impressive update. The menu response was now on par with the N95 and N81 as was the list of features. It does come with the standard MicroSD memory card slot (just like the E50 did) and now even a standard USB plug (a very welcome feature). Expect this phone to be out by the end of the year.

New S60 platform to support Widgets

Nokia showed some future S60 functionality which they are currently beta testing. The core of the new features will be the ability to run Widgets on your mobile phone. The good news is that some older phone will be upgradable to the new version of S60. The new S60 3rd FP2 will allow better multi tasking by allowing easier task switching (using new tabs on top of the screen). The main screen will also be more customizable.

A demo was shown with a test installation (which looked very similar to the current style). The Widgets will be able to use Java, Ajax, and multiple APIs from web services. Here is the presentation by Nokia about the new FP2. Enjoy...