Symbian Users - Many still out there?

Redisle

[RANT]

Ive had a Nokia N82 now for the past two years. Grand, it's a good phone hardware wise, old now of course but still gps, wifi, 5Mpix CZ etc.

I recently got an ipod touch and just using iOS for a few weeks makes me realise how unbelievably bad symbian is. (S60 V3). I have no experience of the Symbian^3 on the N8 and the like so I can't comment on that but really.. S60 V3 is a pretty awful OS.

Slow as hell, randomly forgets things like wireless passwords, no more developer support (fair enough it's an old platform but it was never great to begin with). The music player is awful. Other key functions like gallery are really badly designed.. why oh why do I have to be in thumnail browser to send a pic via bluetooth.. too hard to implement send option when viewing fullscreen!? Theres some pointless functions, like that silver button above clear that goes to some stupid recently played/viewed thing etc.

Overall it's just really annoying the hell out of me. Im tempted to go out and buy some nice HTC or something but for now Im going to stick with this and just use it as a phone and.. that's about it. Joikucloud to use it as an apn for the ipod perhaps

[/RANT]

Anyway, Im just wondering if there are many people still sticking with symbian when there are far far better options out there?

I can't see myself ever buying another nokia whenever this one dies. Iphone or android would certainly be the next step. The only thing I would miss would be the camera and Xenon flash, which other manufacturers rarely live up to!

sillo

I am actually breaking my usual 3-year-minimum phone rule to leave my Nokia and move onto a mid-range android. While my 5800 was a big upgrade at the time, the smartphone market has moved on a lot in the last 12-18 months and frankly Nokia have lost the software war IMO.

kirving

I had a Nokia N85, pretty dam powerful phone 2 years ago. I got it on release and paid almost as much as I would have for an iPhone 3G. I chose it because it was fare more capable at the time. The N82 is three years old.

You really arent comparing like with like. At all. Even then, the Nokia performs extremely well given the fact its quite old in phone standards now.

They both still have a huge amount of functionality and support a huge amount of file types and protocols.

On the Bluetooth problem, could you even send pic on bluetooth with the iPhone? :rolleyes:

Yes, Apps have become huge lately, and the Media have latched onto the iPhone, but anything you actually have to do(rather than just piss about with some crap free iPhone game) you can do on the latest Nokia's.

I got an N8 a few weeks ago, but since you've resigned yourself to leaving Nokia, theres no point in talking about it.

Oh, and yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_current.png

Redisle

sillo wrote: »

I am actually breaking my usual 3-year-minimum phone rule to leave my Nokia and move onto a mid-range android. While my 5800 was a big upgrade at the time, the smartphone market has moved on a lot in the last 12-18 months and frankly Nokia have lost the software war IMO.

Quite impressive that most of your phones last 3 years! I used to go by a 1 year rule before I started on smartphones . Went from an N70 (still going, in use by someone else) to an N82 (still going and been through hell, dropped/mishandled many many times). So I guess something can be said of the quality of Nokia's hardware, especially candy bar formats. But yeah, I too think they have lost the software war. Symbian was ok when it was either symbian or winmo and symbian was far more prevalent. Now it seems like it's the ugly step brother.

Nokia's attempt at an app store was also far too late coming, and wasn't even implemented well. Haven't been on the "ovi store" often but from what I have seen it's not exactly very intuitive and the prices of paid apps are generally unregulated and expensive.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

You really arent comparing like with like. At all. Even then, the Nokia performs extremely well given the fact its quite old in phone standards now.

They both still have a huge amount of functionality and support a huge amount of file types and protocols.

On the Bluetooth problem, could you even send pic on bluetooth with the iPhone? :rolleyes:

Yes, Apps have become huge lately, and the Media have latched onto the iPhone, but anything you actually have to do(rather than just piss about with some crap free iPhone game) you can do on the latest Nokia's.

I got an N8 a few weeks ago, but since you've resigned yourself to leaving Nokia, theres no point in talking about it.

Oh, and yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_current.png

Yeah fair point. Im not comparing like for like. I guess I should have posted my symbian gripes a few years ago. I guess what I should be saying/thinking is how far things have come from this older version of symbian to the likes of iOS and Android. Just such massive improvements in the overall user experience.

The iOS bluetooth restrictions are quite limiting, Im surprised there dosen't even seen to be any OBEX apps or the like available in Cydia so it really must be a hardware limitation, or at least somehing built into the OS itself.

I would be interested to use something like an N8 to see how things have changed so I wouldn't dismiss it offhand, Im only saying Id stay away from nokia based on my current experience of iOS vs S60 V3.


Regarding that market share chart, it would be much more interesting to see smartphones as % of sales for 2010 or similar. Id imagine that symbian share would include a large amount of older phones that are still hanging in there, take my N70 for instance, still going 4 years later. Symbian is around for a lot longer than Android and iOS so it's understandable it would still have a large market share from the extra years it's existed.

Ardennes1944

i have a 5530. happy out with it. would like a new phone soon any may do so but will stick with this for a while. latest upgrade on jan 2 seems to have ****ed it up a bit though

sillo

Redisle that's sort of an average. I had an Ericsson for about 5 years, then a Nokia for 3 years, then another (awful) Sony for about a year, then the 5800. To be fair theres nothing at all wrong with the Nokia hardware - and I have always loved their interface - but Symbian in general is just embarassing compared to the competition (it seems slow, clunky, buggy and counterintuitive).

The ovi store is - frankly - a joke.

evolutionqy7

Kevin Irving wrote: »

I had a Nokia N85, pretty dam powerful phone 2 years ago. I got it on release and paid almost as much as I would have for an iPhone 3G. I chose it because it was fare more capable at the time. The N82 is three years old.

You really arent comparing like with like. At all. Even then, the Nokia performs extremely well given the fact its quite old in phone standards now.

They both still have a huge amount of functionality and support a huge amount of file types and protocols.

On the Bluetooth problem, could you even send pic on bluetooth with the iPhone? :rolleyes:

Yes, Apps have become huge lately, and the Media have latched onto the iPhone, but anything you actually have to do(rather than just piss about with some crap free iPhone game) you can do on the latest Nokia's.

I got an N8 a few weeks ago, but since you've resigned yourself to leaving Nokia, theres no point in talking about it.

Oh, and yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_current.png

Well ill agree iPhone is WAY over hyped

You have to admit they had a good run with the first one because it was revolutionary at the time though yes that crap about not being able to send files through BT is alot of crap now their loosing the game .

They offer less than any android handset at a higher price. You can get a decent android phone for around 400 quid and be able to do more and customize more to make the smartphone more suited to you. I dont expect Nokia Smartphone share to go up anytime soon. Not till they ditch Symbian and at least switch to MeeGo and provide decent developer tools.

If it wasn't for their dumb phone division they would barely be noticeable on that pie chart.

At the end of the day they gone slow like RIM to innovate since the N95 and seemed to take on Nintendo's approach to sell "Classic Products" with a new model badge.

It would take a miracle for them to come back in the game.

N8 is an OK phone. I feel the camera is way over hyped too. My house mate has the N8. I tried to take pics and take a video of my phone and couldn't get a decent focus no matter how hard i tried. Software is an improvement! But ****ing hell after paying that money for a flagship phone it still lags!

So no Nokia for me for a while anyway. Stick with Windows Phone and Android

KrisW

Word is that WP7 has not sold at all well. You'll note that MS haven't released the numbers, which adds weight to this rumour, but analysis suggests only 3M handsets combined, for the whole of Q4 2010.

For perspective, just one model of Android phone, the Galaxy S, has sold nearly 5 M in this time, and just one model of Symbian3 phone, the N8, is believed to have sold around 4 M without even being on the US market.

On the OP, I love the iPod Touch, but I'd never consider buying an iPhone. The iPod excels at its sole purpose of entertainment, whereas the iPhone scrapes a bare pass as a communications device, but it's got a ****-hot entertainment device attached.

I dont expect Nokia Smartphone share to go up anytime soon. Not till they ditch Symbian and at least switch to MeeGo and provide decent developer tools.

Series60 was nasty, but there's nothing wrong with the writing on the Qt SDK. Download the free SDK, install the remote debugger on your phone, and off you go. Took me less time than setting up the iOS SDK. Only complaint is I had to install Windows to use it, but even that's due to be fixed soon, and I can go back to using my Mac. The IDE's even pretty good. Not the best I've used (it's very hard to choose a best, anyway), but in the top group. You do need to know C++ for Qt though, but if you only know Javascript there's also Qt Quick, which has to be the best rapid application kit I've seen in a long while.

Dan_Solo

I'm on an N97 mini myself. Needs a bit of management (programs not closing, C drive filling up) but it's been great for the last year. Don't think I'm missing much on the Android or Apple stores TBH. 99% total garbage.
I'm at least a year away from an upgrade. Will be either Android or Meego at that stage.

Guy:Incognito

My last Nokia was the 5800. It got relatively light use then after a while Bluetooth packed in. It just says that bluetooth cant be activated anytime you try turn it on. The OS is poor and when I moved to an Iphone (3gs) it was light years ahead. In the last few days I've moved again to Android (Desire HD) and dont think I'll move away from android unless somehting revolutionary happens elsewhere. Certainly wont be touching Symbian again 9I had a couple of versions on a few phones).

evolutionqy7

KrisW wrote: »

Word is that WP7 has not sold at all well. You'll note that MS haven't released the numbers, which adds weight to this rumour, but analysis suggests only 3M handsets combined, for the whole of Q4 2010.

For perspective, just one model of Android phone, the Galaxy S, has sold nearly 5 M in this time, and just one model of Symbian3 phone, the N8, is believed to have sold around 4 M without even being on the US market.

Lol your comparing a mature OS against a new one? The fact is that there weren't enough Windows Phones manufactured. Shops basically couldn't get them in. I walked into several shops in Dublin and they were all sold out.

Ive installed Windows Phone 7 on my phone today. And its the best UI in my opinion. Its simple and clean.

Apps are growing at a rate of 500 a week. So i think you cant deny the popularity of the OS. Even my boss ditched iPhone 4 for Samsung Omnia 7 and she loves her iPhone i never liked iPhone cause of the dull UI of sea of apps.

donkey balls

Im still using my N97 even though I have an Iphone4 waiting to get the N8.

Dan_Solo

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

Ive installed Windows Phone 7 on my phone today. And its the best UI in my opinion. Its simple and clean.

Sorry, I don't get you. Do you not buy a "WP7 phone"? Can it be installed on other handsets, i.e. anything ARM Android will run on?

evolutionqy7

Its only HTC HD2 that can can multi boot. Otherwise you can only buy it

KrisW

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

Lol your comparing a mature OS against a new one?

Okay, discard Galaxy S which was highly available through the quarter, and now I'm only comparing two new product launches, both hyped, both with new OSes, and both very important to their manufacturers: Nokia's N8 and all Windows Phone handsets combined. N8 was also severly constrained until well into November, so I think it's reasonable to compare these two. WP7 also had the advantages of universally favourable reviews from the online tech media and a widespread US availablity on carrier subsidy.

The fact is that there weren't enough Windows Phones manufactured. Shops basically couldn't get them in. I walked into several shops in Dublin and they were all sold out.

There was a serious shortage at launch time, but this has eased now. There are four major manufacturers building these - how could they all be facing production issues? I think there was a lot of caution from licencees about this, and from carriers: remember, users don't buy mobiles, the networks do.

There's no supply constraint in the US - have a look at the offers now on WP7 handsets. Do you ever get 1-cent handset or buy-one-get-one-free on something that's in high demand? Hardly the sign of a roaring success in what's been WinCE/WinMo/WP7's home market.

MS said their licencees shipped 1.6 M handsets in the first six weeks (half the quarter) - that's an official number, but didn't release details of activations. Information from retail and industry analysis suggests that the total sold in the quarter is less than 3 M. Analysts have been (badly) wrong before, so all this is with a grain of salt, until MS come out with numbers.

MS are very quick to publicise their success stories, and there's been a little concern that Ballmer didn't mention WP7 numbers at his CES'11 presentation despite rattling off some pretty impressive XBox and Knect numbers.

I'm not saying it's a bad product. I've only played with one very briefly, but the first two layers of the UI are genuinely innovative (the only fault is there's way too much scrolling needed once you add a few tiles). Still it's something the Android makers in particular could do well to copy, instead of aping iOS's dumbed-down layout (hello Samsung!) or trying to replicate a computer desktop.

MackDeToaster

I'm still on my N97 and love it, at least with a custom f/w and SPB Mobile Shell - it now looks great and I have no problems with ram errors, C: space or whatever.
I'm half tempted by an N8 but can't really justify it as only the better camera is really relevant now to me now. PR2.0 might have me looking again, but what I'm really seriously looking forward to is a Meego phone so I'm hanging on til then.

ednwireland

nokia e66 (vodafone wont upgrade me without me paying loads more and changing my contract to a really sh***y smartphone one)

thinking of getting a sony mini pro android (why does everyone think i want to carry something the size of an iphone anyway ?)

evolutionqy7

KrisW wrote: »

Okay, discard Galaxy S which was highly available through the quarter, and now I'm only comparing two new product launches, both hyped, both with new OSes, and both very important to their manufacturers: Nokia's N8 and all Windows Phone handsets combined. N8 was also severly constrained until well into November, so I think it's reasonable to compare these two. WP7 also had the advantages of universally favourable reviews from the online tech media and a widespread US availablity on carrier subsidy.


There was a serious shortage at launch time, but this has eased now. There are four major manufacturers building these - how could they all be facing production issues? I think there was a lot of caution from licencees about this, and from carriers: remember, users don't buy mobiles, the networks do.

There's no supply constraint in the US - have a look at the offers now on WP7 handsets. Do you ever get 1-cent handset or buy-one-get-one-free on something that's in high demand? Hardly the sign of a roaring success in what's been WinCE/WinMo/WP7's home market.

MS said their licencees shipped 1.6 M handsets in the first six weeks (half the quarter) - that's an official number, but didn't release details of activations. Information from retail and industry analysis suggests that the total sold in the quarter is less than 3 M. Analysts have been (badly) wrong before, so all this is with a grain of salt, until MS come out with numbers.

MS are very quick to publicise their success stories, and there's been a little concern that Ballmer didn't mention WP7 numbers at his CES'11 presentation despite rattling off some pretty impressive XBox and Knect numbers.

I'm not saying it's a bad product. I've only played with one very briefly, but the first two layers of the UI are genuinely innovative (the only fault is there's way too much scrolling needed once you add a few tiles). Still it's something the Android makers in particular could do well to copy, instead of aping iOS's dumbed-down layout (hello Samsung!) or trying to replicate a computer desktop.

dude you cant compare black with white? Your comparing a brand new OS to Android and then a phone giant Nokia? Nokia's UI is ancient and ugly and slow.

If you want a fair comparison make it to the first Android phone and first Apple phone.

Now moving on. Very few companies every vive their numbers if their not that great? What did you expect a world domination on the first month or something? AH come on man. Just because MS is a giant doesn't mean everything slides like butter. Public awareness takes ages to kick in. People need to see how everything works then they will buy the phone.

Even i was going to skip WP7 and get DHD till i got to play with it and it convinced me it was something well worth getting. Hence why im moving away from Android to WP7.

You need to live with it. I love the features.

Every OS has its ups and downs. My opinion iOS is to damn boring and dull. Android is a mess and windows phone 7 doesnt have full features available for Ireland.

Then again iOS has slightly better apps than Android. Android can be customized to you and many different UI's. Windows Phone 7 got great games and it has damn nicest UI out there. Its simple but with loads of eye candy. Probably if it didnt have live titles it wouldnt be half as good.

Ardent

I have my N95 3 and a half years now - still going strong! I have so many great symbian apps on it and I would hate to part with it. I also have an iPhone 3GS but I only use it as an entertainment device at home.

Leaving the UI and aesthetics aside, the Nokias are super phones. Sure, the iPhone has a slick interface but you really are limited in comparison to what's possible on other smartphone models. Also, who in their right mind would want to use that POS iTunes every day??!!

KrisW

Also, who in their right mind would want to use that POS iTunes every day??!!

Got to say iTunes is the iPhone's Achilles heel. The Mac version is bloatware, but on Windows.. oh Dear God, it's awful. As far as I can see iTunes's primary function is to display dialogs requesting that you update iTunes...

dude you cant compare black with white? Your comparing a brand new OS to Android and then a phone giant Nokia?

No, I'm only comparing handset sales. All handsets running WP7, versus one single model running Nokia's new OS, with the figures for the top selling Android handset to provide a reference point. I think that's reasonable enough to get a feel of how WP7 is selling.

Why that mix? Well, there's no breakdown figures for WP7 available by model; there's also no figure for all Symbian3 handsets combined, just an estimate for N8 sales alone (the total for Symbian3 combine will be bigger, so if anything the comparison is skewed against Nokia here). I mentioned the Galaxy S to give an idea of what a top-selling smartphone can sell, when there's strong demand and good supply.

If there was still a supply constraint on WP7 handets, the price would not be low, and no network would be giving them away two-for-one.

This is basic economic theory - if people want your product, and you've got it, you can name your price until people stop buying. If they want it, and can't get it, you can make a killing -- or rather the grey market will make a killing, like those who brought 1G iPhones into Ireland and sold them for stupid money back in 2007.

I think that's a fair enough argument for my position... unlike this tripe: More web visitors are using Win98 than WindowsPhone7. Oooh look, cumulative figures for two and three years of sales dwarf those for 12 weeks. Who'd have thought.

evolutionqy7

Yeah well it took ages for galaxy to take off. It was in the shadows till Samsung went sneaky and cut of HTC's AMOLED supply so the galaxy could come out of HTC Desires shadow.

Im just saying its unfair to compare it to anything but the first iPhone and Android G1.