Nokia Releases Three Smartphones with New Symbian "Belle"
by Kristian Vättö on August 24, 2011 12:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Nokia
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Nokia has revealed three new smartphones today: Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600.
| Nokia 600 | Nokia 700 | Nokia 701 | |
| Screen Size | 3.2" | 3.2" | 3.5" |
| Resolution | 640x360 | 640x360 | 640x360 |
| Display Type | N/A | AMOLED | IPS |
| NAND | 2GB + microSD | 2GB + microSD | 8GB + microSD |
| CPU | ARM 11 @ 1GHz | ARM 11 @ 1GHz | ARM 11 @ 1GHz |
| RAM | 512MB LPDDR1 (?) | 512MB LPDDR1 (?) | 512MB LPDDR1 (?) |
| Camera | 5MP with LED Flash | 5MP with LED Flash | 8MP with LED Flash |
| Battery | 1200mAh | 1080mAh | 1300mAh |
| Dimensions (HxWxD) | 111mm x 53mm x 13-14.25mm | 110mm x 50mm x 9.7mm | 117.2mm x 56.8mm x 11mm |
| Weight | 100g | 96g | 131g |
According to FoneHome.co.uk, these phones will be available next month and will priced around 180€ ($260), 270€ ($390) and 290€ ($420) respectively. Unfortunately, the GPU is unknown and the RAM type is not 100%, though LPDDR1 is very likely.
All three are powered by Symbian's new version called "Belle". The biggest upgrades in Symbian include support for up to six home screens, notification menu (similar to Android and iOS 5) and enchanted widgets (support for live chat for instance).
Nokia brings NFC (Near Field Communication) to all three phones too. NFC is a technology that allows connections to be enabled via touch. For example, you can touch another phone and they will create an NFC connection between each other. Nokia has also announced three accessories which support NFC: A speaker, handsfree and headphones. Some other phones support NFC too, such as Samsung Galaxy S II (not all for some reason though) and Google Nexus S.
All in all, these phones look like solid Nokia quality but the Symbian-bugbear is still there. Since Nokia's Windows Phone 7 phones are pretty much just around the corner, the market for Symbian based phones doesn't look too great. Investing on Symbian at the moment seems like beating a dead horse. Once Nokia's WP7 phones are out, that is where Nokia will be concentrating. That means at least less, if any, love for Symbian.
Source: Nokia
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codedivine - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
CPU is ARM11 1GHz and RAM is 512MB.More details here: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Devices/Device_spec...
GPU is unknown. And Nokia has said that Symbian will be supported till 2016. Given that many Android vendors do few updates to their phones after release, this is much better support.
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
Thanks, I have updated the article.Symbian might be supported till 2016 but does that mean any real updates? Will it ever be able to fight against Android, iOS and WP7? Windows XP is still officially supported but when was the last time XP got a new feature? I think Symbian will get some updates, that is sure, but those will mainly be bug and security updates.
milli - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
There will be another major update after Belle and i don't know if you have used Belle, but it's pretty amazing. The performance it's able to get out of a N8, is nothing short but breathtaking. To get the same feel as Belle (from a 680Mhz ARM11 device), you'll need a 1Ghz A9 Android device. Anna made my N8 feel twice as fast and Belle is twice as fast as Anna. The memory footprint has shrunk considerably compared to Anna. Having +10 apps open causes no major slowdowns (on my N8 with 256MB ram and these new phones have 512MB). Basically i think Symbian can get away with half the memory compared to Android.You can check out this video to get a small clue of what Belle is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZePeLU_VZ8
I figured out that the GPU is the Broadcom BCM2763. Nokia mentioned that these new phones pack a new gpu with four times the video ram. Since the BCM2727 embeds 32MB of ram and the BCM2763 128MB, you don't need to look any further. BTW, this is something most people don't know. These Nokia phones have dedicated video ram unlike any other phone.
The BCM2763 should be able to hit 1GPixel just like the SGX540 @ 200Mhz. It will for sure be faster than the Hummingbird implementation. OMAP4 should be faster than this though.
Just because Elop wants you to think that Symbian is a 'burning platform', doesn't make it true. Ovi Store downloads are growing faster than any other platform.
http://mynokiablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/...
Just this summer Nokia gave away +20 games for free (including Angry Birds Rio, The Sims 3 HD, The Settlers HD, ...). This is my first Nokia phone but things like this make me want to buy Nokia again.
radium69 - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
I still need to get Anna from my carrier, which hasn't happened yet. And from the videos I have seen it's a big leap forward in terms of smooth GUI.At least they are not giving up on me :)
Also I find symbian OS not so bad at all, I've actually became used to it and like the simple things and easy menu's
Also it still is fast.
michaelklachko - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
Is that a joke?B3an - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
These are not high-end phones. Mid-range.luv2liv - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
does ATT force data plan on Nokia smartphone???i cant seem to find a straight answer on this.
worthy_p - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
some of u tlkng lyk rysstsname99 - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
When I saw these specs, I assumed we were talking $50 phones destined for Africa and poor Asia. $400!!!Yeah, Nokia, good luck selling these.
(On the plus side, maybe in three weeks they'll be going for $79 at Best Buy, and people will scoop them up, happy with the knowledge that they got a "bargain", and under the illusion that one day someone will get Android running on them.)
Alexvrb - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - link
I'm sure this is without a contract, but I don't think you'll see any of these stateside either way. Anyway, if you use one and it is more responsive than an equivalent Android device, does it matter what its clocks and raw numbers are? From an end user perspective, they only care what it does and how well it does it, not what circuitry lies inside the magic box.