Nokia unveils upcoming handsets with latest Symbian OS, NFC connectivity

MANILA, Philippines - Nokia allowed the media to take a sneak peek at its upcoming handsets powered by the latest Symbian Belle operating system in an intimate luncheon at Ayala Museum’s M Café in Greenbelt, Makati City recently.

The new OS, called Symbian Belle, comes hot off the heels of Symbian Anna and will debut with two new models, the Nokia 700 and 701.

According to Nokia officials, Symbian Belle provides Nokia’s most competitive, seamless and intuitive Symbian experience yet.

On the surface, the new version brings more improvements to the homescreen than Anna did.

The homescreen now consists of up to six rather than three panes and the widgets that live on those panes will be available in five different sizes. This is in contrast to those on Anna and Symbian^3, which were all of the same size.

The widgets can be resized too, allowing even more personalization and customization. The main menu is also now flat, it’s vertically scrollable and all the shortcuts are placed on the same screen, doing away with the folders.

Consciously or not, these changes bring Symbian Belle somewhat closer to the Android user interface.

The way multi-tasking works has changed, too. Instead of the old task switcher, users can now flick between live images of the open apps.

Another notable change is a pull-down menu for notifications from any homescreen  a very useful change, and one that’s a bit reminiscent of the notification areas found in iOS and Android devices. The menu also offers toggles to control mobile data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Silent mode.

Belle continues Nokia’s push toward an NFC-enabled (Near-Field Communications) world. NFC is a Bluetooth-based connectivity system that’s triggered simply by tapping two devices (or one NFC device and an NFC-encoded tag) to activate the connection. There’s no need to manually turn on a device’s Bluetooth.

Pairing is brilliantly simple: you tap two NFC-enabled devices together (i.e. two phones or a phone and an NFC-enabled speaker or headset) and that’s it. To unpair them, just tap them again.

Other NFC-enabled Nokia devices previewed during the event were the Nokia Play 360o wireless loudspeaker and the Nokia Bluetooth wireless stereo headset BH-111.

The Nokia 700 is the Finnish company’s smallest smartphone to date. It’s got a scratch-resistant, smudge-free 3.2-inch touch screen and boasts fast Internet connection and browsing speeds.

It’s also got a five-megapixel camera with LED flash and HD video recording. The Nokia 700 has a 2G internal memory expandable via MicroSD card.

While no official retail prices have been announced, the Nokia 700 will retail for anywhere between P10,000 and P15,000 when it hits the market mid- to late-October.

The Nokia 701, on the other hand, sports a brilliant 3.5-inch ClearBlack touch-screen display and a satin-texture stainless steel body. It runs on a fast 1GHz processor for smoother Web browsing, faster downloads, and effortless multi-tasking.

It also sports an 8-MP camera with dual-LED flash, a front VGA camera for video calling, and HD recording. Storage is via 8GB internal memory with MicroSD card support up to 32GB.

Angry Birds fans will be excited to know that the Nokia 701 can unlock new levels via NFC. The Nokia 701 is expected to retail between P15,000 and P20,000 when it hits local stores later this month.

Nokia officials also mentioned that the Symbian Belle software update will soon be available for the Nokia N8, E6, E7, C6-01, C7 and X7.