back to article Nokia X7 Symbian Anna smartphone

When you buy a mobile, you know that you’re likely to be stuck with it for the life of your contract. Good news: you’ll get used to its quirks and differences. Bad news: you can only watch as gorgeous handsets are released for the next year or two. Nokia X7 Smart move? Nokia's X7 But what’s trickier about the new Nokia X7 …

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  1. Saucerhead Tharpe
    Pint

    Never mind the OS

    the phone design has a certain 70s chic about it.

    Wouldn't buy it, especially with my Android fanboi Elop hating to do in my spare time

    But if you have a dodgy old Italian supercare from the Seventies then this looks like the phone to match it, if only it came in a weird lime green or bright yellow

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Marmite Design

    Design - You either love it or hate it

    The rest - that is too much money being asked for what is essentially a software zombie.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hardly Zombied

      I feel calling a OS that will be supported until 2016 zombied, 5 year is a long time for software support for any phone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Zombie is as zombie does

        And Nokia have left Symbian to rot ever since they acquired it.

        Braaaaiiinnnnssss!

      2. N13L5
        Devil

        zombied for sure

        its not about being able to call on Nokia for support... You think Nokia is going to do anything more than the most minimal / absolutely necessary fixes for it? Think...

        Its about mindshare with 3rd party developers. Do you think Skype will ever bother to grace it with a new version? ya right :P

        And thats just one example of the myriad cool new apps available on iOS and Android.

        zombied indeed

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Low end specs

    The specifications on par with the ZTE Blade (or Orange San Francisco) with a better camera and probably better speakers, but a worse screen.

    Besides that, the ZTE has a decent OS, made for touch, frequently updated, and with a vibrant community, not a soon to be abandoned one.

    The ZTE can be bought by 150€, tell me again how much does this cost?

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      except...

      this bit:

      screens swiping exactly when your finger does, and the accelerometer spinning the display as quickly as you turn the phone. The three home screens of the N8 stacked with shortcut icons respond instantly

      The boy has a San Francisco, and it's a good cheap(ish) way of getting an Android phone. However, you couldn't honestly describe it as always responding instantly. So while this Nokia phone, on paper, has low specs, what's important is how well those specs deal with the OS. Judging by this review, it manages that fine, with a responsive ui and battery life of "over a day". In my opinion those statistics are much more important than processor speed or amount of RAM.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @except

        Either the ZTE is released in the UK with a firmware much worst than the bloated Portuguese version, or it isn't the same. I got the wife a Portuguese Sapo A5, which even before the recent official update to froyo was fast and lasted up to 3 days. The only reason I ended up flashing cyanogen on it was to get rid of all the TMN/Sapo applications, that were useless for her. With gingerbread the battery now lasts a little less (around two days), but it is still snappy, the camera is ok (a flash would help in interior shots), and the screen is bright and easily readable. It responds very well to swipes, and the accelerometer screen turning, while not instant, is fast enough.

        This, together with a quarter of the cost of the X7, makes it very difficult to understand why to chose the later.

    2. RubberJohnny

      But but but

      The OSF (I have one) has an appallingly bad ability to see an RF signal, and therefore bad call drop ratio and poor 3G signal strength, an abominably bad battery life, a dreadful camera and is as reliable as Amy Winehouse.

      So before you point at number specs have a think about real world use.

      Not that I would want an X7 at that price, or even half of it.

      1. tmTM

        Only on stock rom tho

        As has been said there's a vibrant modding community with many custom android roms available which are simple for even a novice to install.

        A new Gingerbread rom has been recently released, the UI is as slick and responsive as any other smartphone around and with juice defender installed you get a couple of days normal use (which is ok for todays smartphones)

        The camera is bobbins tho, but I've not noticed any problem with signal reception and I live in a rubbish area.

        I got my ZTE Blade for £90, the Nokia is over £400 - it does look better, and have a much better camera but for over £400 with a not brilliant processor and no native flash???

        You can do alot better for the money being asked.

        1. RubberJohnny

          The Orange San Franfiction

          I love the way people defend the OSF/Blade by making untruths about it. I have one and it is a drawer resident shortly to make its way to Mazuma because stock ROM or modded ROM it's a pile of carp.

          1. tmTM

            Doing it wrong?

            You must have been doing something wrong with yours then, because there's nothing wrong with mine?

            Have just upgraded to a Galaxy S II and while the Samsung is some sort of crazy mobile computer-phone the little OSF still does everything you ask of it, I never had any problem browsing the web or playing games on mine.

            The lack of flash and rubbish camera were the only drawbacks I found, but for under £100 it's a cracking smartphone.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Won't be the last Symbian handset

    A few more in the development pipeline I bet. And when the WinPho one comes out- that will be the only one running Windows, whilst there will be a number of Nokia smartphones running Symbian. Don't expect the world to change that fast!

    I would also put money on the Nokia WinPho being a bit rubbish in the multi-media (Camera, video playback, record etc) department compared to the current Nokias.

  5. sebacoustic
    Meh

    all hail to the new dawn

    expect the world to change in autum, when Nokia releases W7 handsets? ... yeah right, expect the new breed of Nokisofts to run out of battery really soon and be shit for, err, making phone calls.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: all hail to the new dawn

      I think that's what he meant...

  6. DrXym

    Like the corners, hate the grilles

    I think the design would look nicer without the grilles on it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Let me summarise

    Its ugly, it has a OS even the company that developed it hates, everyone else hates it as well - hence why its not selling, there are like 4 apps for it and its expensive.

    DO NOT WANT, nor will anyone else.

    Fail, because Nokia already have.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not selling?

      Nokia had sold 10's of millions of the latest Symbian phones (N8 onwards). So someone must be buying them,.

      They truly are not as bad as people make out. The latest Symbian seems very good - maybe not up to iPhone standard, but pretty good nevertheless. The cameras are way better than all the competition, call quality is better, overall mechanical quality is better than most. It's just the Sw isn't quite up to modern standards, but it's really not that bad!

      People seem to think that because Symbian is reaching end of life it should be avoided - but I really don't know why. Most people keep their phones until they either buy a new one at end of contract, or it dies. So the choice of OS depends on your apps choice. If you are not that bothered in the apps department (and a lot of people don't care), then there is nothing wrong with buying Symbian. You do get quite a lot for your cash.

      1. Ian Michael Gumby
        Coat

        IPhone Standard?

        Sorry, but while Apple makes decent kit, it's not the supreme smart phone. OS aside, Nokia phones are solid. Cant say that about apple.

        I for one want my subsidized phone to last the life of the contract. Is that too much to ask?

        Oh yeah. Mine is the jacket that has a phone which is used as a phone and does email. Could care less about watching vids or surfing the web, I have an iPad2 for that.

        1. Giles Jones Gold badge

          Solid?

          We've had a couple of Nokia model phones at work. One was so buggy that it would switch to speakerphone and you had to pull the battery out and switch it on again to fix it.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Couldn't Care Less

          The phrase is "I couldn't care less". Notice the n't bit at the end of the could word? It means that there is no way you could care any less about whatever you were talking about whereas what you wrote is that you could care less so obviously you do care about whatever it was.

          People!

    2. sabroni Silver badge

      That's why the iPhone is the best phone ever.

      it has the most apps. There was me stupidly assuming a phone was for phoning, when of course that's got nothing to do with it! And this Nokia phone's expensive, no one buys expensive phones! And people do hate symbian (I regularly hear people saying just that when I'm sat on the bus) so no way will it sell.

      Well done anonymous, you've really hit the nail on the head with that post! No really, well done!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Thanks Sabroni.

        I thought I hit it pretty well.

        If you want a phone that actually works as a phone - get a Nokia. They work.

        And as for people hating Symbian - try the latest one (as reviewed here), not the older versions. It's, as I said, not bad. People on the bus won't have tried the latest version, but since you are forming an opinion from overheard conversations on the bus without actually using it....

        And Nokia have still sold 10 of millions of the latest Symbian devices, so not sure why you think they won't sell, since they have already done so.

        People don't buy expensive phones? Have you heard of the iPhone?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    "Everyone"

    Hardly, there are 100s of millions of Symbian users. If they all hated Symbian as much as you seem to, then I suspect that precisely zero symbian phones would have been sold. This is clearly not the case.

    As usual, the US experience is a bit different, because the US telecoms market is seriously fucked up, as are the analysys there who seem to think USA=World. The fact that NOK are not number one there, does not diminish the fcat that globally, despite Elops best efforts so far, still accounts for a massive amount of sales, and an increasing number of sales - a fact that many analysts and commentards fail to realise - mostly because they are intellectually incapable of basic comprehension.

    WinPho might be the "saviour" of NOK, but (a) I do not think NOK needed a saviour (unless one thinks USA=World) and (b) The latest Symbian and the new MeeGo phone seem to indicate that NOK was well on the way to solving the issues they had with speed to market and product software capability.

    Nothing like ignorant trolls to liven up the exchanges on the Reg, but it gets tiring hearing the same fanboy rubbish spouted by the ignorant

  9. Kevin7
    Stop

    Update for the N8?

    Even though the N8 is older it still has a better spec in my opinion yet doesn't seem to be being updated as well. The GUI on the N8 is very sluggish and desperately needs an update. Given the similarities between the X7 and N8 it strikes me as that Nokia still don't appreciate the problems associated in having too many models covering much the same ground.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      It will be..

      N8 will get Anna in August (presumably when the Finn's get back from Holiday, almost the whole of Finland takes July off.) I expect the rest of the Symbain ^3 phones will get it as well. Chances are very high that they will also get future updates as well because Anna was only supposed to be a building block to a more radical UI revamp.

      1. chr0m4t1c

        Too late

        While I agree that Anna looks like it'll be a nice update, it's 8 months later than promised and is, in fact, the OS that the N8 should have launched with. And the N8 should have launched two years ago instead of the N97.

        It's nice, if somewhat annoying, to see that Nokia is finally getting Symbian sorted out but if they'd done it all that time ago (when it mattered), then they probably wouldn't have had to do the Microsoft deal.

        As you said, Anna is just meant to be a building block for the next version (Belle); the preview videos look good, but then so did the Anna ones 6-7 months ago and TBH I'm not waiting any longer. My contract is up in September and I'll be ditching Symbian phones and Nokia, probably for good.

        And that really irks me because Nokia was always my "return to" brand that I went back to after making the mistake of trying another phone brand and now they're actually the mistake brand that I want to get away from.

  10. Jemma
    FAIL

    Im curious...

    If anyone who comments or writes reviews on this site is fitted with a brain.

    The phone is fitted with a 600-800mhz range processor because of one very simple reason. It doesnt need any more power. Android, iOS and the rest of the them are lardy behemoths that suck processor power. The symbian core is still that of the EPOC machines, you know, the ones whose battery life lasted three weeks on two AA batteries.

    I have a six year old symbian phone on its original battery - and it still does 4 days on standby without a problem.

    I find it interesting that all the detractors are AC's - what a surprise to see the spineless leading the gormless as usual - reminds me of wall street.

    This is the rule of the retards personified. There is plenty of freeware around for symbian v5 (which is what the X7 runs, with a few tweaks) so the arguments that there is no software for it are total and utter crap.

    It always amazes me that people these days spout about the environment and saving energy, then get a phone that uses more power than the average notebook computer a few years ago.

    I will say it again - condemning this OS because its actually more efficient than *any* of its competitors - harks of the stupidity of the masses... who've fallen for the adverts... and are happy to use systems on their phone that are insecure, powerhungry and utterly unsuitable for the devices they are used upon.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Not just the CPU

      The GPU also needs to be very power efficient, either on CPU or as a co-pro, and I think I am right in saying the GPU in the N8 and the rest of the current Symbian range is the lowest power and once of the highest performances available. Certainly considerably lower than the GPU's used in the iPhone and Androids. All that fancy GUI, HD playback and record etc stuff needs some grunt, and low power parts make a big difference.

    2. introiboad
      Go

      Re: standby

      My iPhone 4 does 4 days in Standby without a hitch, and that's with Skype running on WiFi (GSM/3G data disabled).

      I wonder why Symbian phones never use Cortex-A8/9 processors? Is that a Symbian limitation? You say they don't need it, but try loading a complex web page over WiFi and compare load times with a modern Android/iPhone

      1. Adam Hammerton

        @introiboad...

        Sony Ericsson's last Symbian phones and the Samsung i8190 were Cortex A8's so there's no OS limitation. Nokia just seem to have a fetish for arm11. Hopefully the first batch of 1Ghz Symbian phones due shortly will be using ST-Ericsson's u8500 (dual Cortex A9).

        1. introiboad
          Thumb Up

          @Adam

          Thanks for the info, I was not aware of this.

          Another issue is whether Symbian is finally ready for SMP like Linux and iOS are. Transitioning from a single core to symmetric multiprocessing is hard. I guess it's less relevant now since Symbian is being deprecated in favor of Linux/WinPhone.

    3. tmTM

      but

      iPhone and Android phones eat up power as the users install a bunch of apps and games and then spend all day fiddling with them and complain when the battery dies after being hammered by the CPU & GPU.

      There aren't the same range of apps for symbian, there isn't the same use of handset and the battery lasts longer.

      The OS may be slightly more efficient, but the use of the phone has a greater effect on life.

      Who cares if you need to charge the phone everynight because you've messed around with it all day, it's not like you need to use it when your asleep.

  11. Tim Walker

    If the X7 interests you...

    ...at least consider the N8 - on the hardware side, the N8 has a higher-spec camera, all-aluminium unibody construction (and in my subjective view, better looks), built-in HDMI port, front-facing second camera and quite a few other goodies the X7 doesn't have. The N8 is also due to get the "Anna" OS update in the next few weeks or so, removing yet another advantage the X7 would have.

    Best of all, the N8 can now be found SIM-free for under £300 (compared to the X7's £400+), and presumably cheaper on contract too, so it's well worth a look if the X7 catches your attention. More on the N8's hidden gems here:

    http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/13066_Its_better_than_you_think-5_un.php

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      N8 et al

      A TomTom will always be cheaper, but there will be a point when the N8 and its ilk will become very affordable (second hand or selling off stock) and become an excellent sat-nav. Max out the SD card with downloaded maps (for free) and you're sorted wherever you go.

      It will also have a browser and be able to make phone calls too, if you want it to.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        Re: N8 et al

        Exactly. I have an N95 doing this job already :)

        Big bright screen, 8G worth of map storage (enough to hold all EU and North America and some music) - here is a working car SatNav which would have gone down in the recycling bucket otherwise. It is also built like a bricks***house so it is not falling apart any time soon.

        It is definitely cheaper than any TomTom as it costed me nothing :)

        1. Tim Walker

          +1 for the satnav

          Lately, I've been using my N8 more and more for satnav purposes - Ovi Maps is one of the golden arrows in a Nokia handset's quiver (now there's an analogy).

          IMO, it really can replace a dedicated satnav for most people's needs, especially if you pre-download map packs. You don't have the range of downloadable "voices" that TomTom offers (yes, I'm tempted to buy the Brian Blessed pack), but with the "Own Voice" app in the Ovi Store, you can record your own voice (or a loved one's?) and be guided to your destination by it.

          TomTom must REALLY hate Nokia...

    2. Kristian Walsh Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      +1 for N8

      The X7's screen is a lot bigger, and offers better image quality, but if you want an outstanding camera, for a lower price, with the same battery life and call quality, the N8 is now available for pretty good prices, and, screen aside, has a much nicer specification. If you want a keyboard, the E7 has the same excellent screen, plus a keyboard, but is more expensive than X7. Basically, the C6-01, C7, E7, X7 and N8 are all the same hardware core with varying form factors and feature sets, so you take your pick.

      Another plus: the firmware on newly-made N8s will be the same version as the X7 (Symbian "Anna"). Nokia expects all existing C6-01, C7, E7 and N8 users to have access to this update over-the-air before the end of August, but when exactly will depend on the mobile networks signing it off. ( http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/06/21/symbian-anna-available-starting-july/ )

  12. Jean-Paul

    4 years too late

    Funny that, finally Symbian looks like it is useable (based upon the pictures and videos I've seen), shame they implement these oh so necessary UI tweaks 4 years too late and after they put the nails in the coffin...Daft buggers those Fins.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      Blame Canada

      Elop is a Canadian hatchet man.

      Blame Canada

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Portrait T9 ftw

    Please tell me that you can turn the portrait QWERTY off?!

    Going to M$ was one thing but hindering non-pixie-fingered users is just the final straw.

    No-one actually likes portrait qwerty - it's just the iphone users have to tell you they do in the same way they call all their phones' faults a "Must Have Feature"

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Yes, you can turn the portrait QWERTY off.

      Yes, you can choose between T9 and QWERTY for the portrait layout (tap the menu icon, and change the keyboard mode), and you're right: for one-handed use, the twelve-key T9 layout is hard to beat. It's nice to have a choice, though.

      iPhone's keyboard isn't bad, but in its eagerness to give you a proper word rather than a typo (or what it thinks is a typo - let's not go into the issue of non-American given names), it can land you in some very difficult situations. I'd be very wary of using an iPhone to send messages to an important client...

  14. Lottie

    wow

    Expensive, but DAMN! that's a funky design. Looks like something out of Total Recall.

  15. Stuart Archer

    Cylon phone?

    Is it just me, or could this be a smartphone from the new Battlestar Galactica series, what with their obsession with hexagonal paper? Just give it an oscillating red light..

  16. Rob Davis
    Thumb Up

    Spin off Symbian again please. Still love my Nokia 5500 Sport Series 60 3rd edition.

    Nice small-ish rugged phone to take down the beach and not get too precious about. Dropped loads of times, still full signal strength.

    Case got tatty several times, so smartened it up with replacement fascia etc for a few quid off ebay, hey presto, brand new phone.

    Basic camera but has a torch, web on GPRS fast enough for train times, email and the odd social networking.

    Charge lasts for about 4 days on standby, maybe a little more or a little less depending on use. Love the minimalist, simple things sometimes.

    A variation on the sticker on old cars would be: "My other phone is an Android." - for when I do want the full web on the move, better pictures.

  17. ScissorHands
    WTF?

    The world HAS changed - it's called N9

    It's just taking a bit of time to catch his breath...

    Maemo, Maemo, wherefore art thou Maemo? Too bad Nokia will not pay NetFlix, Wordpress, Hulu, NFL, et al to build apps for Maemo, because they've been borg'd my Microsoft.

  18. Flossie
    Alert

    What's wrong with Symbian

    I honestly can't understand why so many people seem to have it in for Symbian, I've been very happy with my Nokia X6 and don't intend to replace it any time soon.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      nice..... nice.....

      not thrilling..... but nice.

      that's the X6 for ya.

      now "wash this"

  19. Jemma
    Facepalm

    ...and Zoidberg...

    Is the reason why people are bashing Symbian and because every idiot reviewer who does a review of a Symbian phone does it in 5 minutes from the pub and therefore wouldnt know the phones ass from its elbow.

    Then you have the traditional Nokia stance of 'advertising...? whats that then?'... and the rest is fanboi-tastic. I swear the Symbian platform has gotten more advertising from negative reviews than it has from anything else. Alot of people wouldnt know it exists otherwise.

    Its fun to poke fun at Symbian v5 and even AAS have done it on occasion, lambasting Nokia for gormless product decisions (N97 anyone?). However people seem to miss the point and its an important one. The ONLY place the Symbian handsets lag is in their current UI.

    Listen carefully folks - this is the important part.

    In practically every other field they are either better, equal, or much better. Theyve had features that are touted as new by other OS manufacturers for years...

    Dual processors - Nokia E70 206mhz - 2006

    Output to Projector - Nokia E70 - 2006

    Output to TV - Nokia N93 onwards - 2007

    Discriminate Graphics Processor- N93 again - 2007

    Need I go on?

    The OS runs on much less intensive cores, so when its idling its using a fair amount less power processor for processor, but this is another important part, when its working its little heart out to play your futurama episodes out to the TV via TV-Out or HDMI.... its using substantially less power to do that, so even at full power it might be using less mA than a iPhone at 50% processor usage.

    I would venture to suggest that if the new Belle update concentrates more on the UI than on other improvements (which to be fair are not really needed all that much since the system is comparable in function to anything else) then Elops idea to hum unto the Microsoft might fall down round his ears - and Apple might find their wheezy cameras and limited functionality are really getting put to the test function for function. Android... crashtastic, flakey signal, cr-app-tastic is also at risk, because to make a usable 'droid phone you need a step up in processor power, and therefore a step up in component costs.

    The only OS of the top three that I havent tested is iOS, mainly because even touching apple products makes me feel dirty. I have had two manufacturer baked Android phones, and they've been pitiful on signal (no signal where the E70 gets 4/6 bars) and flakey on software, spontaneous reboots. Ive had a dual booting HTC diamond for a while and the Android on that was painful to say the least. Yet an E70 with 206mhz processors, that is 6 years old, can run rings around them.

    But the really ironic thing... the thing that makes me laugh, is that Windows Mobile 6.1/6.5 outperforms Android - is much more stable - and can do everything that the current flock can do, and ALWAYS COULD.

    But it wasnt pretty enough was it - and you had to think to use it - so now its confined to its coffin with dead iOS fanbois put to good use as the nails.

    I dont recall the definition of the word progress as being "take all the functions off it, make it simple to use, use processors that need the power output of the falcons hyperdrive, and make it crash every second hour' but then I learned English...

    Not Fan-glish.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      You were going well...

      Until you entered the "viva winmo 6.5, down with android" rant.

      I don't know which android phones you had and with what firmware, but I can tell you my N1 and my wife's Sapo A5 get better signal and are much more stable than the crap N96 (the last nokia I ever bought) I still have here gathering dust. And comparing to a friend's winmo 6.5 HTC I always get a stronger signal on any of the androids - besides the androids being faster, more flexible, and much more stable. Saying that winmo is more stable, in what do you base that? I've seen it crash during normal usage, and it never seemed particularly stable. Never mind you had to hunt for specially hacked firmwares to get it to upgrade, or else just get stuck in the early, buggy version it was released with.

      In the end, most HTCs with winmo have older, inferior hardware (even compared to the cheap ZTE/Sapo A5) and an abandoned OS, and while the N96 had a great camera ans speakers, it had that god awful symbian ui, and the crash happy firmware that won't even let me use it as a GPS because it will reset for sure as soon as we are near an intersection.

      I think my last good nokia was the 6600 (the original one).

      Really, I don't understand the android bashing in your post, and the lies about the ZTE on other posts. Android is a great, stable, fast and flexible OS with a extremely involved community (something that is missing from ALL the other phone OS), the hardware ranges from the so-so to the great, and it really is faster and more powerful than winmo on the same hw - just ask anyone who has upgraded an HTC HD2, all my friends went from winmo 6.5 to android in a second.

      1. Jemma
        FAIL

        .. because you are still missing the point...

        Why should I buy a phone that drops its pants to google when I turn on the GPS, and is crippled if I dont allow the phone to do so.

        You are entirely missing my point. I can and do have a fully functional winmo smartphone with a 260mhz processor, there are at least 4 different UI options for it, which it can run without issue. Its capable of taking 16gb MicroSD cards. Why is it that you are bouncing around with pleasure when your phone needs a 800mhz processor to run its OS as smoothly as a Symbian does with a 200mhz processor.

        It does exactly the same as the Android phones you are so enamoured of - with the added advantage its rock solid stable and always, like the symbian you so loathe, has signal 24/7 where android phones wont dare to tread. Oh yes, and theres the part where you can still syncronise your Gmail account, with push, for free, without being shafted by google.

        Why on earth do you seem to think that its progress to require more and more power to run a phone OS? Surely the whole point of progress is to make devices that have more ability whilst using less power, or learn to use the phone you have to the full extent of its capabilities..

        And I would like to make one last point. I personally have been physically attacked twice, I would much rather have a symbian/winmo phone with me, in case of emergencies, that will get and hold a signal... than be in urgent need of assistance and find my iOS/Android phone has zero signal.

        I wonder how many girls and women have been put in dangerous or lethal situations because the phone advertising they fell for, lumbered them with battery hungry mobile phones that excel at taking pictures and giving them a headache, but either have a flat battery or no signal, when some nutter who is far to close to his mother is intent on raping or strangling them...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I'm not the one missing the point

          Stability, in Nokia/Symbian, ended in the N95. On the aforementioned N96 (and others), the only way to have the GPS find where it is quickly is to replace the supl.nokia.com with supl.google.com, and that won't help you on the N96 as it will still reboot when the GPS has to deal with a large intersection.

          It isn't smooth - I had to wait minutes for that crap to finish booting before being able to do anything. If I dared try to access contacts or dial while it was still loading some background crap, it would happily reboot again.

          As for the signal - any of my android phones gets a signal with more ease than the last nokias (plural) I had. The only phone I had that had better reception (and still does) is a really venerable nokia 7100 - from when they knew how to make phones. Even the 6600 had worst reception than my "matrix" nokia.

          I agree with you, that for the same functionality, one should need less power with newer generations of phones. However, the android has so much more functionality, and functionality that I can use immediately instead of having to hunt through a complicated and messy menu system, that it will use that power. You can use something like setcpu to put your cpu clock constantly at 260MHz and still use it well for phone calls, etc., all the basic phone stuff. But with a more powerful phone you can do a lot of other stuff, from playing games to sending photos and videos to the family, to sshing into a server in case of need, etc. Btw, you'll have to tell me how to get push functionality working on a series 3 symbian - it never worked on my N96.

          As for your final straw man, on what to do in case of an attack - I see you keep insisting on an android phone having less signal. I don't see that here. I see winmos being unstable, crash happy crap that can't do a call reliably, even with full signal power, and I see recent nokias also becoming crash happy, slow, and getting less signal than any of my androids. And here the signal reception is crap in many places - but my android never let me down.

  20. Danny 5
    Thumb Down

    why?

    didn't they put a 12 Mpx camera in there? i did quite a bit of searching online for my new phone, focusing on the best cam and the N8 outshone all of the others, most by quite a margin. now they've taken what was the most appealing feature for me in the N8 out of the package.

    I think i'll go and see if i can get a second hand N8.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      quality != megapixelas

      Jeez, I thought even the most ignorant people were past the stage of megapixels = quality for a camera. The Nokia phone cameras are better because they have better optics. Better/larger sensors help but I am not going to go find the actual comparisons. And then there is the software which really is a deal breaker when it sucks - which it does on so many phone cams.

  21. andy 45
    Thumb Up

    Very happy with my Nokia C7

    - Latest Symbian OS is pretty slick - hardly any lag

    - It has an FM transmitter - play music in the car or anywhere with a radio

    - TV output

    - 720HD recording

    - feels solid

    £30 on upgraded contract - sweet...

  22. Avatar of They
    Devil

    another step closer

    Well the last linux phone has gone (meego really to come out?) the last symbian is now out so Nokia is dead by christmas then?

    I mean winpho 7 actually going to save them?

  23. John Armstrong-Millar
    FAIL

    finally

    wow Nokia finally make a phone that I would want to buy. a pity then that's it's already a museum piece

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