Symbian^3 gets exhaustively reviewed

By on Jun 24, 2010 at 10:21 AM
General June 24, 2010

murtazin-s3-screenshot

Nokia fans waiting with bated breath for Symbian^3 and the N8 to arrive now have an exhaustive review of the next generation Symbian platform to tide them over. Courtesy of Eldar Murtazin, the review covers nearly every nook and cranny of the upcoming mobile operating system with screen galore. If you are expecting a glowing review that praises Nokia’s efforts, you better look elsewhere as Murtazin is brutally frank with his assessment and highly critical of the OS. Wrapping up his review, Murtazin acknowledges that S^3 is a step forward for Symbian but the platform still is several generations behind its competition. He calls Symbian^3 a gift from Nokia to its competition, explaining that Nokia’s flagship OS is “inferior to the already existing solutions” and can only make these other platforms look good in comparison. Ouch!

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  • Anonymous

    Nokia should just break down and implement Android on their phones.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Drummer85 Creamy Tuna Casserole

    I love when people make comments that make absolutely no sense, in an feeble attempt to justify being the first person to comment.

  • Jim

    I just wonder how a company with massive global market share failed so miserably against Apple and Google – two relative newcomers to the game, at least compared to Nokia. Do they just figure they’ll make all their $ from selling low priced phones in developing countries? Boggles the mind…

    • Dave

      Define failed, in the US heck yeah they failed to market their smart phones, then the Iphone and Android captured public attention leaving little room for others.

      Globably, not so much yet, yes their profits are down due to the competition but when you’re the biggest dog in the fight, you have the most territory to cede.

  • Doll

    This looks like the old Windows Mobile

  • AT33

    While Symbian 3 may still look clumsy a bit, this phone offers true multi-tasking, 12MP camera, Xenon flash, FM transmitter, FREE Navigation, live home screen widgets, 3G video calling (not just over WIFI), dedicated 3D Graphics processor, and and and… for half the price of the iPhone 4

    That ain’t too shabby in my book, and we haven’t even seen the real iPhone competitor yet: the N9. Just be prepared, this phone will sell more than iPhone and all Androids combined.

    • General Zod

      The N9 is supposed to be on MeeGo. I hope Nokia succeeds because I like their expertise in making great hardware.

      I really wanted the N97 when it was announced but after all of the poor reviews I decided not to get it (glad I didn’t buy it). I do love my E71 but it’s too outdated now.

    • JP

      I seriously doubt Nokia will have *anything* that can outsell the iphone now, or in the near future.

      Haven’t Nokia learn anything from Apple’s success? People wants eye candy stuff on their phone, and that’s what Apple gives them, in retina display real and what not. This Symbian3 stuff so far looks extremely, severely, absolutely outdated.

      Given the photos of the iphone 4 and this symbian3 device, I think 99.9999999999999999% of the people will get the iphone. The reviewer is not alone.

      • JP

        Oh and did I mention the stupid font is back? Don’t they have another font? Hint: the font alone makes the phone looks old. and tired.

      • hypnotist

        Nokia has several individual phones that outsell the iphone. Now.

        Many people will want the iPhone I would imagine. Then they’ll see it costs four times as much as a Symbian phone which does just as much (or more), just not as smoothly, and will get that instead.

  • http://devilsworkshop.org Aditya Kane

    This looks like Symbian’s obituary.. Considering it was the hottest thing 3-4 years ago this is quite sad but inevitable I guess.

  • autoexec.bat

    This looks like S60 5th Edition got stuck in the microwave and warmed up a bit. Before I get attacked for not worshiping Symbian, I AM a Nokia fanboy (with an E55 on TMO USA). I even owned the Nokia N810 Wimax Edition which NO ONE had – so I am also very familiar with Maemo/Meego. I had every intention of getting the N8 when it came out (and might still), but seeing these screens it just looks like the same old stuff. Fine as far as it goes, but nothing to get excited about. I am sure Meego will be better, but it’s going to take a LOOOONG time for there to be enough apps to make owning a Nokia anything other than very painful.

    Sigh, I think I’ll just wait for the next Android superphone that comes with AWS 3G bands.

  • wild homes

    I recently said goodbye to my E71, and to Nokia. As cool as the N900 is as an enthusiast device, it’s not really usable as a smartphone– I needed an operating environment helmed by an agile entity in constant active development. I wound up going Android. Nokia’s fallen too far behind the competition and they don’t have the mindset to pull ahead. They’re kind of like RIM, in a way… money’s still coming in the door, but anyone can see the product is aging very badly, and the moment of reckoning is very near. If both of those companies don’t secretly have something very awesome, and very current if not very “from the freaking future” in their labs, I think we’re about to see Nokia and RIM enter the (extremely protracted) deadpool.

    At least from a tech sense.

    • Joey

      Funny you mention RIM in the same breath, I had the same thoughts.

      I could see Nokia trying to compete with RIM on the business side, and essentially forget about the consumer biz, but I dunno if their enterprise chops are anything special.

  • Brian

    The OS is not the main problem.
    Freshening the interface to match the expected UI of the day while retaining the solidity of the base is a sound decision.
    Nok’s and by extension, Symbian’r real crime is not opening the development environment.
    The efforts underway to do so are to little and likely to late.
    That does not discount the OS and the updates though.
    Once setup, a good – and that has to be stressed given some of the truly bad examples – Nok phone is a solid offering that delivers within the experience envelope well over time for far less the cost of the new girls.
    The new girls do the nasty nasty but will get the crud from the vendor, service or malicious user and drop on you when wallowed out while the Nok will deliver repeatedly over time.
    Unfortunately for Nokia, people like the expensive hollow immediate experience of teh pR0n that delivers now onscreen instead of the genuine solid luvin.
    In other words, unless Meego go, Nokia stay and fall behind.
    By the way, when do we see a real, unified C+/Java/JavaScript/Python/Pearl/Flash/etc development environment across HW?
    Read that carefully.
    Hint, it looks more like MeeGo than anything else but hell, I’m not a fanboy of anything and haven’t done much more than web work in a while so what do I know?

    • autoexec.bat

      Not ugly. Just “sterile”.

  • drypulse

    man that’s one ugly os. makes me wanna input dos commands

  • El Marko

    It’s an extraordinary review. Unfortunately, if Symbian^3 cannot sync categories (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, etc.) with Outlook or any web-based apps (such as Google’s apps), then it’s still an OS that renders whatever phone it’s installed into, shall we say, somewhat less-than-smart.

    Eyecandy cannot make up for the lack of even the slightest system concept of “category” and a sub-par browser.

    It looks like with the N8, Nokia has once again produced a stellar piece of hardware crippled by mediocre software. How sad.

  • http://whatleydude.com James Whatley

    Interesting to note Eldar’s whole review is based entirely on screenshots. Apparently he was ‘on holiday’ so couldn’t take any photos of the device he was using.

    Nothing to do with it being pre-release software on proto-hardware then?

    Okay….

  • Mace

    Nokia is not loosing to Apple or Android. On the contrary, its global market share in smartphones has increased from 38 to 40%. Losers have been Motorola and SE. USA is different case, but Nokia has not even tried to win there, market is too dominated by operators. And forget Eldar, he is famous Nokia and Symbian hater.

  • DROIDLOVER

    NOKIA SUX AND THIS IS WHY THEY ARE A DINOSAUR JUST LIKE RIMM IS STARTING TO BECOME WITH THERE OS.NO ONE IN AMERICA GIVES A CRAP ABOUT NOKIA AND SYMBIAN!SYMBIAN IS ABOUT AS IMPORTANT AS WINDOWS MOBILE 6.1!!

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