All the clues are pointing towards Nokia giving the Symbian OS one last high-profile outing; with the N8's successor likely to be the much leaked Nokia 803.

We first got wind of the supposed Nokia Belle handset back in December when a user manual turned up and now we've got some extra details to add to the rumour round-up.

BGR is reporting that a "trusted source" has the readies on the new handset and that we could be looking at a smartphone packing "the largest camera sensor" ever.

The Nokia N8, if you remember, wasn't exactly a smash-hit for the Finnish company but its camera skills were, and still are, pretty much unrivalled. It features a 12-megapixel snapper with Carl Zeiss optics and a xenon flash, and is capable of 720p video with continuous AutoFocus at 30fps.

If the Nokia 803 eclipses that, it will be a seriously spec'd camera phone giant.

It's also rumoured to be packing a 4-inch AMOLED display with a HDMI-out port, microSIM support and NFC skills too.

So, quite a swan song for Symbian although come the murmured May release - will anyone really care about ringing the Belle?

Tags: Nokia Nokia 803 Phones Symbian Nokia Belle

Nokia 803 to be last throw of the Symbian dice? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:03:00 +0000

These days it's all about Windows Phone 7 with Nokia. But there was a time when the Finnish company had all of its OS eggs planted firmly with another platform. And now, after 13 years, the 1.5 billionth S40 device has been sold.

The handset in question was a Nokia Asha 303 - a touchscreen device announced back in October 2011 - and it was brought by Mayara Rodrigues, a 21-year-old a Brazilian woman, in Sao Paolo.?

Mary McDowell, EVP for mobile phones at Nokia, said: "We are incredibly proud to reach this milestone. Having 1.5 billion Series 40 devices sold is a hard-to-reach mark, let alone one attainable in a single line of products.

"At a time when we are maintaining our commitment to connecting the next billion customers around the world - it is gratifying to consider how Series 40 devices have made mobile technology accessible and help continue to change people's lives for the better."

To put the humongous figure in perspective - the amount of iPhones sold in its lifetime is around the 183 million mark and, even if you group iOS devices together, you're only looking at around 300 million. The Android device count is between 250 million and 300 million depending on whose figures you go on.

Series 40 has had a significant head start mind; the first phone - a Nokia 7110 - went on sale in 1999. The platform is still found on 12 devices sold by Nokia every second though, eclipsing the 4 per second iPhone sales that Apple achieved in the last quarter of 2011.

"The next billion," McDowell told the BBC, "will not come from rural areas, but from big cities and the very young. It is a scale business with relatively low research and development cost; so even though the average unit price is low, it's profit is still good."

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Tags: Phones Nokia Symbian Nokia Asha 303

Nokia Series 40 passes 1.5 billion mark originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Nokia's move to ditch Symbian completely might not be complete finalised just yet; however, that hasn't stopped the Finnish company from ditching its name in the latest software update planned for February.

"The all new Nokia Belle (previously Symbian Belle) user interface will soon be available for download to some existing smartphones and begin shipping with a selection of smartphones that are already on the market," said Nokia, without making too much of a song and dance about the "previously" element of that sentence.

Nokia Belle launched earlier this year (2011) with the Nokia 701, Nokia 700 and Nokia 603 smartphones.

For those already owning a Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7 or Nokia Oro, the wait for Nokia Belle is almost over; the owners of these phones will be getting the update in February 2012.

Nokia Belle brings you more home screens, expanding the current three home screens you get with Nokia Anna to six. That’s more screen real estate to host your apps and widgets.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Nokia Symbian Nokia Belle Symbian belle

Nokia ditches Symbian name, promises Nokia Belle for 2012 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:10:00 +0000