Symbian Belle Part 1

Symbian Belle is here! Wahoo! Yeah! Mucho Fanfare!

But seriously, I am not sure what the excitement was all about. I think the closest experience was when a new Windows Operating System was launched, everyone was excited and there was a lot of hype and all. Its as if the new OS was the next revolutionary thing. That is, once the dust has settled,  everyone has installed a copy and realised what a lemon it was.

But on the other hand, this can go either way. It could really enhance your system or make it suck.

So, it was at this moment, the Nokia Suite informed that there is a new version of Symbian out. And dutifully, like a commercial sheep being led to the slaughterhouse, I tried it...

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This was more or less my original Nokia n8 screen. You can have up to three of these Home screens.

This is the new Symbian Belle screen six hour later. Looks Android-ish but you can have six Home screens now.

There are  lot of on-line widgets for you to configure, which as soon as I found out, I disabled the Data download from the phone before removing all these little 'temptations'.

The next screen was the same but its time for a little bit of reconfiguring...

All these have to go too. In the end, try as I might, I only have three Home screens.

One good thing is that the icons are now much more pleasant to look at.

Yeah, why not? This is because the Wi-Fi functions of the n8 improved a lot

All nice little songs for you but the Original Nokia is stil the best

This is the Symbian Belle screen when its in the 'locked' mode. In the daylight, its quite hard to see. And so, I had to use 'Digital' clock instead. But after sometime, it gets boring....

So, you just push the button and this one comes up. Its supposed to be dim. Once you unlock it, the whole screen lights up and the black background once again fills with your customised icons/widgets.

New SMS notification screen is nice. Maybe, they could put in the calling number and a short title...

You can position the icons anywhere you like within the screen's grid and be aware, some icons actually take more than one tile space, like the Music Player. Also, you can move the icon to the next Home screen too. So, how is it all done? Just put your finger over the icon for a few seconds and the phone then vibrates a bit and you can now move the icon or delete it. Here is me moving my finger about...

Just like the Apple/Android screen, when you put your finger to the top and drag it downwards, the Notification page comes up, which is very handy when you want to check you SMS, Bluetooth status, Wifi, etc.

Just like my Blog, I like to put notes and reminders into the phone. This is something I am not so happy as I am still used to the Nokia 5800 which is much simpler.

And if I write too  much, the screen goes funny, i.e. the bottom cuts to the top.

One thing you must know that any icons positioned on portrait mode...

Can be rearranged to suit your needs in Landscape mode.

The Picture Gallery in Landscape more. Note that from now on, each picture taken is now renamed in a new format under the DCIM folder and any video taken from the camera is now in the same folder as well. Downloaded videos will remain in the Videos folder. Which is neat because as a heavy user of the camera, I do not have to search between 'Images' and 'Video' folders.

Being so new to the Symbian Belle, this 'Search' App is a blessing. Sometimes its slow but it will definitely find what you're looking for, which is very important when I am seaching for a contact from the Phonebook.

The OVI Maps has changed slightly but its still a breeze to use and very fast.

There is a additional function called 'Overview' which shows the overall distance and map from the starting point to the final destination.

I am starting to appreciate the E-Mail widget which allows you to get emails from different mails such as Yahoo! and Google. You can even set the retrieval time too otherwise it would be very annoying if people email you in the early morning. This is because every new mail has a 'chime' sound. Oh, and Skype is very good when you have Wifi anywhere...

Finally, the System screen...

The SMS function is quite good because it arranges all your SMS by one phone number. OK, so this is something new to me.

Finally, some new Apps such as Internet Radio. Look for .977 comedy and 104 Comedy

So, how does the Belle experience turned out?

To be honest, I am quite satisfied with it. Eversince I had a Nokia 5800 and now the n8, with each firmware upgrade, the phone works faster and also, consumes even less battery but there is one problem which I am not so happy about. Of course, you cannot please all the people at the same time, something which I have to accept because this is not about me. The reason is that the Phone Memory for the n8, just like the 5800, drops and NEVER release any extra memory. I have tried to locate and delete as much files as I can but it just does not work. Even with a hard reset, the problem will return weeks later. I mean, from 256MB, it goes to 70, then to 18MB. This is very worrying for me.

I am not sure but once I use the Panorama in the n8, the program does not freeze so much anymore. I am confident that with more memory, it would work even better. Then again, this is just me. But really, I would like the Phone Memory problem resolved. Being so used to Nokia phones, it is perfect for me.