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Symbian Series 60 v3 what is it? how is it different from UIQ ?

Symbian is a OS for mobile devices.Well everybody knows that, then what is this series 60 v2 and v3 and then they call feature pack.What exactly are these?.To know what they are we need to have a look at a bit of history.

Symbian Ltd is the original owner of Symbian OS , Symbian is currently owned by Nokia (47.9%), Ericsson (15.6%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Panasonic (10.5%), Siemens AG (8.4%) and Samsung (4.5%).

That time the UI was of different variants, It was fragmented between Nokia and Sony ericsson. Development of different UIs was made generic with a “reference design strategy” for either ‘smartphone’ or ‘communicator’ devices, subdivided further into keyboard- or tablet-based designs. Two reference UIs (DFRDs) were shipped – Quartz and Crystal. The former was merged with Ericsson’s ‘Ronneby’ design and became the basis for the UIQ interface, the latter reached the market as the Nokia Series 80 UI.

Later UIs were Sapphire,Ruby and Emerald. But in end it was Crystal for Nokia and Quartz for Sony Ericsson. By 2002 Symbian stopped development of UI and started giving its OS without UI. The UI development was taken by Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Whereas the Core OS is same for both companies UI’s differ. Nokia went on its development of Series 60 whereas Sony Ericsson came out with UIQ. Till this day this is the norm with both these companies, and even others like Motorola use either one of these UI’s.

Current major version of Symbian core is 9.1 and Nokia’s s60 v3 uses this version.Sony ericsson devices M600 and W950 uses this core. The Symbian 9.1 was a major upgrade from symbian 8.0 with more security and other features.

There have been three releases of Nokia S60: “Series 60” (2001), “Series 60 Second Edition” (2004) and “Series 60 3rd Edition” (2005). The third version is not compatible with earlier two versions and is based on Symbian 9.1.

2nd edition phones were the popular Nokia 3230,Nokia 6085,N70,N90,N72.

3rd edition phones include N73,N93,N95(with feature pack),E61i.

Nokia is planning to bring out the Series 60 v5 (they are skipping on v4 as 4  denotes death in Asia.. Im also from Asia but never knew this) in 2008, with support for touch screen much like iphone. But the only touch screen phone available currently from Nokia is 6708, it uses UIQ(sonyericsson’s) .

Nokia also has S40, the main differentiating factor being the S40 is not multitasking. You cant open more than a single application. Nokia 5300 is latest addition in S40.

S80 is the communicator series with Nokia 9300 and Nokia 9500. S90 being the N7700 or the new N770. S90,S80 and S40 are not compatible with S60.

S60 is also licensed and used by Samsung,LG,Lenova and Panasonic.UIQ is used by Motorola and others. Symbian covers almost 60+% of Smartphone market with Windows Mobile at 15% and Windows CE and RIM devices at 10%.

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A day with Nokia N95 8GB

nokia_n95_8gb_02_low.jpg

I don wanna explain the specs.. as u all know what they are still a basic intro

– 5 mp camera with xenon flash , carl zeiss lens and auto focus
– 8 GB memory
– GPS
– Real player
– Voip
– slide both ways
– 2.8″ screen

Now again specs really doesn give u wov, even i was very much skeptical about some features in the N95 spec, mainly GPS and the video capability.

Now its time u tell me if its good.. the GPS took a few mins in my case 2 mins outside and 4 mins inside my room to pick up atleast 7 different satellites. Location is pointed to within 30 mts with 4 satellite feeds and much precise with 5 satellites. I was quite impressed by the location pointing exactly over my room, neat for a mobile GPS(or Is it).
On my way back from Tuttle Mall in the bus I tested the navigation with Nokia maps.. was really stunned, the road map was so good even it gave me guess of my enire route(or rather COTA route?) the coverage was very good and it tracked with every second.
Back to my hotel again searched for nearby restaurants.. it gave a list of nearby restaurants with distance as sorting option, tht is wonderful. Even found groceries and it has some options to find almost all public places.Add to it the contact information, website information.. and all. This feauture is even better with Google Maps. I will try with Tom Tom and Garmin ..(I downloaded both these applications also) and update on this.

Nokia gave two more applications free of cost first is Fring, Fring allows you to make VOIP calls with Skype,GTalk,Yahoo,MSN,AOL and etc apart from normal chatting. Setup was very easy.
But surprise came from Gizmowith all the above features, fring gave me 20$ worth free minutes and a new VOIP number (a US number)..thts what I call real deal. I was able to make calls using my WLAN in next moment i nstalled and signed up with fring. And Incoming is free with fring.
Application support fro S60 v3 has improved much better now compared to the time when N73 and N93 first came out. I struggled to get some good apps on these devices. Now almost all major Symbian developer is working on v3. Now my next search is media.
I was searching for a good player apart from the Nokia MP4/MP3 and Real player I already have as default apps.And soon found a divx player from the divx corporation. Im saved from all the converting business i need to undergo for loading a movie, and it playes mpeg,avi and divx in full resolution and there is a option to offset voice/video lag.

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Apple iphone is eye candy alright..

Apple’s iphone/ipod Touch review

When Apple supposedly leaked info on Iphone it sent ripples across the web world.Even news channels caught the frenzy. On launch day Steve Job’s now so famous dragging of pictures with a touch and playing with the phone caught the imagination of entire world.

Apple’s designs are always unmistakeable and breathtaking but to say iphone is a multimedia computer or next gen mobile is a huge overstatement. Except the touch feature iphone brought nothing new to the mobile world. Integrated media player and a basic camera,or huge screens are not new. Apple removed the keyboard and gave the touchscreen. How many users liked texting in iphone is a different question. But it can be used as a good ipod , a fine browser and a decent phone.

Safari browser is not the top notch, after using the nokia’s browser (Symbian series 60 3rd version )with mini map and pointer, you will never say safari is exceptional. Even the free opera mini 3rd version on a big screened phone is better.But again many people who used iphones never knew of all these. Probably the typical US mobile user would have never tasted(or tested) a good phone, after going though the huge(or stupid) list of phones on offer from AT&T and TMobile. In US the network operators decide what phone you use, and usually phones come free on contract, as with most offers free phones are the skum of the line up. It will either be a Moto Razr,Nokia 2600/1600 or at best some flip phone. Then there are high end (???) Blackberry smart(mailing devices) which dont even stand up to even basic  European smartphones.

Then lets come back to our iphone, does it have application support? No.. Apple uncle says you should use whatever was given to you and if you happen to install it, your phone will become a brick. Even more the phone should only be used on AT&T and cant be used with any other operator (even within US).. what are these?. When people are shouting that Microsoft is preinstalling IE and WM Player and it should remove them? what happened those advocates? In these same websites they are chanting apple mantra.

Lets come to economy or the opposite of it. You buy a phone for 399$ (8GB version 1.1.2) thts the easy part, but you should take a AT&T connection worth $60 for 2 years contract. I finally ended up writing this article with even  more vengence(not that much 🙂 ) after seeing the phone plan. I have taken a T-mobile plan with 600 mins,weekend and nights free and  unlimited data plan all for $46 (its not wap its web plan) before tax.  But the same plan with iphone costs me a whopping 80$ before tax 🙁 . So a 34$ extra for 24 months and still you cant unlock your phone officially ever.(YOU CAN NEVER EVER UNLOCK IPHONE  from AT&T, thts what i learnt from AT&T ). 24*34=$ 816. So for the iphone you end up paying $1200 .

As far as technology everyone accepts iphone’s reception is poor,(ok this is not a big deal when our intention of buying this phone itself is different).Even then it doesnt have 3G support, iphone only has EDGE and GPRS. If it is targeted as a web device why miss 3G??

The spoilsport is played by the operators in US, most successful and popular phones in UK and India are not available in US. US operators have a skew towards Motorola and Blackberry and the models of which are failures in other countries. This is pure brute force capitalism and monopoly of operators, in this country mobile customers have few options.

Nokia,Sony ericsson and samsung pretty much dominate UK and Indian markets despite Motorola and Blackberry being present there, thts the story for you !!

And as far as iphone, 3rd party application support  and unbundling of device from operator will determine my  future purchases on new versions of it.Till then sorry uncle I dont want to be ur slave..