Nokia's OS Symbian 3 Smartphone in Q3

BANGALORE, INDIA: Nokia on Tuesday announced that the N8, its first smartphone based on the Symbian 3 OS, will be out in the third quarter.

IDG News Service reported that the Finnish company has promised Symbian 3 phones will be easier to use than their predecessors. The N8 will be the first in a family of smartphones based on Symbian 3 that will be out in 2010, according to Nokia. The N8 is a pivotal device in Nokia's effort to make its high-end phones credible again, according to a research note from CCS Insight. Much has been made of Nokia's deficiencies in the high-end smartphone segment because the Symbian OS development hasn't kept up with the touch-based user interfaces offered first by the iPhone OS and then Android.

According to the report the Symbian 3 is going to change that, according to Nokia. The new OS will allow customizable home screens, support for multitouch, single tap and faster multitasking. The N8 will also provide integration with social networks.

The improvements will help Nokia catch up with Apple and Android-backers like HTC and Motorola, but there is little that will set Nokia apart, according to Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner.

Nokia's biggest challenge will be to get users to pick up the phone and play with it, because the user interface looks just like the existing version of Symbian, which so many users dislike. It is only by using the new OS that the improvements can be seen, Milanesi said. (Mikael Ricknäs, IDG News Service)