Windows Phone 7 Nokia and Symbian Nokia are both Nokia devices that run on two different platforms, namely WP 7 and Symbian. When you plan to buy a new smartphone for yourself, what is the most important feature you have in your mind? Probably features, looks, or even price. But what about it’s OS, which is the software that runs the phone? By now most of the smartphone users have become aware of Android OS and it indeed has become very popular. However, there are other operating systems such as Symbian by Nokia that it has been using for quite some time now, and the OS developed by Microsoft for its windows mobiles. What are the differences between the two? Let us take a look at both of them.
Windows Phone 7
Microsoft developed Windows Mobile as an OS for mobiles, especially for use in smartphones but it has been gradually phased out in favor of the latest Windows Phone 7. Originally Microsoft planned to upgrade its windows mobile OS codenaming it Photon, but finally scrapped it in favor of an entirely new OS called Windows Phone 7. It is fully integrated with Xbox Live and Zune which are the entertainment package for gaming, video and media players from Microsoft.
WP 7 Features:
User friendly interface
Silky operation with some trendy animations
Good support for social media
MS Office well integrated
Compatible with cloud services such as Windows Live, Xbox Live, SkyDrive
Expandable internal memory through micro SD card
Finally coming out of the shadow of Windows Mobile, this OS looks competitive in apps, Bing Maps are looking better than even Google maps; Windows Live messenger has become social with facebook integration and Internet Explorer is also working fine. All these services work well with Windows Phone 7.
Symbian OS
Symbian is an OS from Nokia which is used for smartphones from Nokia. Symbian platform is the successor of Symbian OS and has been widely used by Nokia in many of its mobiles. The latest version is Symbian 3 but recently Nokia announced that they are doing away with Symbian platform and would be using Windows Phone 7 as OS in their forthcoming smartphones. However, Nokia will continue with development on their new smartphone OS ‘MeeGo’.
Symbian was once a very stiff competitor of android and around 40% of smartphones worldwide used it as their OS. Symbian was fully compatible with MS Word, Excel, Power Point etc. For emailing, Symbian is as good as Blackberry and supports POP3, IMAP4 and Webmail accounts. It also supports Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange for maximum efficiency for the corporate users.
As far as multimedia is concerned, Symbian is excellent for audio and video capabilities. Symbian also supports thousands of third party apps, which weighs heavily in its favor when compared with other OS.
Summary
• Windows Phone 7 is the latest OS for smartphones by Microsoft, while Symbian is a popular OS used by Nokia and other manufacturers for quite some time.
• Both Symbian and Windows Phone 7 have excellent features for use as OS in smartphones.
• Nokia has recently announced that it will replace Symbian in favor of windows OS for its future mobile phones.