Our guide to the Symbian Belle update - reasons to want it - and a few caveats

The coming of Symbian Belle, or as Nokia marketing would have you call it, 'Nokia Belle', has been much anticipated in the Symbian world, bringing a whole new scheme for working with RAM and associated performance benefits, plus more flexible homescreens, drop-down notifications pane, Android style, and a nominally 'flat' application menu, with every app in one big (and searchable) list (so you'll never again 'lose' Recorder, for example). Plus a myriad other improvements, mostly detailed below. It's a 'must' download, but what caveats are there? And what precautions should you take?

Accessibility and Nokia Screen Reader

In this guest feature, the 'almost blind' Nickus de Vos tackles an area that's often ignored: accessibility, looking at Nokia Screen Reader (NSR), enabling anybody with visual impairment to still use the main functions of a Symbian smartphone. If you have the right model, that is - NSR is currently only supported on the Nokia C5-00, Nokia C5 5MP, Nokia 700 and Nokia 701. What can NSR do, how well does it work and are there any caveats?

App and game selection: a cross section through my Nokia N8

It's one of the most loved geek games of all - peeking at someone else's smartphone to see how they've got it configured. Usually prompting either "What a newb!" or "Ooo, where did you get that?" With my Nokia N8 now equipped to the maximum just ahead of the imminent Belle update (which will change things around significantly), I thought this might be an opportune time for you to peek at the applications that I, personally, have installed on the N8 that has been with me through thick and thin for the last 15 months. 

Symbian vs Android: app for app comparison: part 2

Symbian vs Android: app for app comparison: part 1

You may remember that, back in March 2011, I looked at the top applications for iOS (i.e. iPhone) and looked at how readily equivalents could be found for Symbian. I was attempting to show that the majority of apps in demand were also available in some form for Symbian - and I succeeded to a degree. But 2011 was the year that Android finally overtook Symbian as the biggest selling smartphone platform (in terms of sales per quarter) - so what about comparing the Android top 20 applications with Symbian - will there be a greater disparity?

Top 30 freeware for Symbian smartphones

Kicking off 2012 in a positive way, and heavily updated from the original feature, I've compiled a latest 'top 30 freeware' for all Symbian^3 smartphones. Excluding games, which tend to be a very personal taste (though there are some great free games too, if you look around). Hopefully this article is a great reference to point new Symbian users to, with everything from small utilities to major applications. And free, free, free.... Right, on with the roll call!

The Top 10 Games on the Nokia E6

It's Christmas time, the holiday season and even enterprise-focussed Nokia E6 owners need to relax a little. Which is why I've sorted out ten of the very best games for the Nokia E6. With its non-standard (though high resolution) screen size, the majority of Symbian games don't look right or play right, but here are ten which I've certified as working well and guaranteed to give you hours of happy gaming over the festive period.

Adapting games to the Nokia E6

One of the unique selling points of the Nokia E6–00 is its high pixel density screen. However, its 2.46" VGA display offers a unique challenge to developers who are used to creating applications for the nHD resolution Symbian phones. This difference greatly affects gaming, where re-factoring the user interface can be far less trivial than it might be in other applications. We take a look at the various approaches of bringing games to the E6.

Voice recognition and control on a budget - and all the things which can go wrong!

We've all been impressed by Apple's launch of their 'Siri' voice interrogation technology in the new iPhone 4S. But it should be borne in mind that something along the same lines (though admittedly nowhere near as adaptable) has been possible for ages on Symbian, even on extreme budget hardware. Just as a reminder, and with some comments on whether this is the way forward for smartphones generally, here's a demo of the free Vlingo in action on an old S60 3rd Edition handset.

Is Windows Phone an upgrade from Symbian?

Amid all the anticipation and speculation surrounding Nokia’s Windows Phone handsets, you’d be forgiven for thinking you have to move with the times and give up your staunch Symbian sidekick. Don’t be in too much of a rush though; while Windows Phone will improve over time, things aren’t all that rosy on the Redmond side of the fence.

Contact link gathering and five other things Nokia need to fix in Social Networking

I've tried to like Nokia Social over the last 12 months, I really have. And in attempting to document how to use it effectively in the light of other, more capable, contact-social schemes like in Windows Phone Mango, I keep coming up against limitations and annoyances which should really have been addressed by now. At the risk of stating the obvious, here's Social's limited take on contact integration, my constructive comments, and five other things that should definitely be on the Nokia Social team's to-do list.

Gravity - the Facebook client you didn't know you had

We all know and love Gravity as a Twitter client par excellence - and most of us probably had an idea that it could 'do' Facebook too. But, following my look at the top standalone Facebook clients, I was curious as to how far Gravity went, in terms of covering the same functionality. Surprisingly far, as it turns out, though there are still Facebook core functions which you'll need a separate client for. Read on for my walkthrough and summary.

Pimping the Nokia X6 - taking it well into 2011

Here's how to get a Symbian smartphone that's useable and competitive, in terms of hardware and software, in 2011 for significantly under £100. Perhaps the last S60 5th Edition smartphone to receive the 'Pimping' treatment from me, the X6 still has lots to recommend it, with insanely good speakers, a capacitive touchscreen, bright display, long lived and replaceable battery and a decent 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss-lensed auto-focus camera, here with dual LED flash. You can now pick up the X6 second hand or in fire sales for less than £100, making it a real bargain. Here's how to pimp it for 2011.

Bible options on Symbian^3

Large reference texts have long been something ideally suited to carrying around in electronic form and I've had several requests for a round up of ways to take the Bible with you. It has, in fact, been something I'd been meaning to research for ages, so here goes. It's true that Bible options on Symbian^3 are somewhat more limited than on other mobile platforms (even than on earlier Symbian versions, e.g. S60 3rd Edition), but that's no reason to lose faith in the idea....

Summary of Symbian content sharing

Sharing content from a Symbian phone has never been a straightforward process. It was streamlined thanks to PixelPipe's Send and Share application, which integrated into Symbian's native Send menu. Pixelpipe can simultaneously post to a vast range of services. Unfortunately, that application is no longer available, even though the service is still available via email uploading. Therefore, here is a round up of the other options for Symbian sharing. Read on to see how the All About Symbian team push content from our phones.

How much faster is the Symbian Anna (Web 7.3) browser?

A new version (7.3) of the Web application ships with Symbian Anna and is also available for selected older devices, via firmware updates. The UI updates are easy to see, but what about the performance improvements from the updated browser engine and other under-the-hood changes? In this feature article we look at how much faster Web 7.3 is compared to Web 7.2 by sharing the results of some comparative browsing tests between the Nokia C7 and the Nokia X7.

A taste of Anna and 2011 Maps - on the N97

AMOLED screens and the unnecessary wasting of battery power

The AMOLED (used in all of the new Symbian^3 and Anna phones, apart from the E6) bottom line is that, because every pixel provides its own light, a bright/white display uses up to fifteen times as much power as a dark/black one. With battery life being a big issue with modern smartphones, you'd have thought that factors of fifteen would make OS and application designers sit up and pay attention. Alas, no. Here's a look around the Symbian world at what has and (usually) hasn't been done to take AMOLED's characteristics into account.

Symbian and The Cloud

Cloud Computing is, of course, the new big thing. At least if you listen to the Silicon Valley crowd. And, being an advocate of Google Mail, Google Documents and Dropbox, I seem to have moved much of my own workflow into The Cloud too. But that's mainly from the desktop, i.e. with access primarily from a big-screened, broadband-connected computer. To what extent is The Cloud relevant to smartphones, what are the pros and cons, and in what state is Symbian access to this new world of online data and services?

Pimping the Nokia N86 8MP

This is the biggest and most comprehensive - and last - in my series of "Pimping" features - for S60 3rd Edition smartphones. And as such, I've saved the best until last, as they say. The Nokia N86 featured here is one of my all time favourite phones and the ultimate incarnation of the original N95 dual slide concept. Just read the list of unique selling points below and you'll see what I mean. Can the N86 still 'cut it' in 2011? It depends what your smartphone needs are, to be sure. Certainly it's a great second hand bargain these days and hopefully this feature will show any new users some tricks and tips for setting it up.