Nokia unveils Symbian Belle, looks Android-ish

Nokia pulled the cover off Symbian Belle, which will debut with the three new models (600, 700 and 701). It succeeds Anna and brings more improvements to the Symbian OS - to quote the press release, "All in all, Symbian Belle provides Nokia's most competitive, seamless and intuitive Symbian experience so far."

By the sound of it, this 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 (they're pretty much all the same size on Anna and Symbian^3). The widgets can be resized too, which gives you even more flexibility.

The new homescreen can have up to six panes and offers resizable widgets

Some of the new widgets

The main menu is now flat - it's vertically scrollable and all the shortcuts are placed on the same screen, no more folders.

The way multitasking works has changed too - instead of the old task switcher, you can now flick between live images of your open apps. Unfortunately, we didn’t see a screenshot of that, it sounds pretty cool.

Another big change is a pull down menu for notifications from any homescreen - we're guessing Nokia has decided to copy Android's notification area much like Apple and Samsung. This menu will also offer toggles to control mobile data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Silent mode (it can't be more obvious).

The new flat menu • The pull-down notification area

Belle continues Nokia's push towards an NFC-enabled world. Pairing is now enviously simple - you tap two NFC-enabled gadgets together (two phones, a phone and a handset) and that's it. To unpair them, just tap them again. We've seen this functionality with the N9 and the cool NFC wireless speaker. Today, Nokia also announced a similarly working NFC-enabled stereo headset - the Nokia Essence.

The Belle lockscreen has been updated too - the new version lets you add color wallpaper and missed event notifications.

Belle also includes new apps from Microsoft - Lync (IM for businesses, like Microsoft Communicator), Sharepoint, OneNote, Exchange ActiveSync and PowerPoint Broadcaster.

Improved messaging app in Symbian Belle

Check out Symbian Belle running on the new Nokia 701 to see the cool new features in action.

The new models - Nokia 600, 700 and 701 - will launch with Symbian Belle, while the older models that just got Anna will be getting it later on, but Nokia didn’t disclose any target dates.

Symbian Belle brings many exciting new features and seems to make the platform much more usable. But as it does, it also pushes Symbian closer to Android (resizable widgets, flat menu, pull-down notification area) - who was it that was quoted saying using Android was like peeing in your pants for warmth? Oh, right, Nokia's own Anssi Vanjoki, chief of smartphones at the time. Well, what he meant was there's little long-term profit in Google's OS and using it is only a temporary relief. We wonder how he'd feel now that Nokia is peeing in its pants with Symbian hoping the warmth will last them enough for Windows Phone 7 to take off.

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