Hasta La Gadget!

Ah, Vertu, where would we be without you? Richer, to be sure, but so very bored. Vertu’s QWERTY-packing Constellation Quest has just gotten the FCC’s stamp of approval, and in addition to the typical beauty shots the FCC includes, there’s also a detailed manual that shows the phone to be running some heavily skinned version of Symbian. The phone has HSDPA data and WiFi, and Vertu is even packing along a 32GB microSD card. There’s still plenty we don’t know about the phone, like when it will hit stores and how many arms and legs it will cost, but for now we’re just happy to have “cray Uncle Vertu” around for the party.

Vertu Constellation Quest shows up at the FCC, running Symbian and looking pleasantly outrageous originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia has wowed us with its hot N8 smartphone, the flagship cellphone which packs in every function known to man, and controls them all with a horrible, old fashioned Symbian OS. Meanwhile, Nokia’s soon-to-be-leaving mobile boss Anssi Vanjoki said using Android was like “peeing in your pants for warmth” in winter, and Ari Jaaksi, head of Nokia’s Meego OS, quit this week.

It seems that the only thing Nokia is still good at is hardware. Luckily, iFixit has gotten hold of an N8 and – of course – taken the ting apart. Follow along to see just how Nokia manahged to fit so much in there.

The N8 is similar in size to the iPhone, but fatter. This is mostly because of the huge camera module inside, which sports a 12MP sensor and a five-element Carl Zeiss lens. This extra thickness does allow some wiggle-room, and might explain how the Finnish technicians managed to include a USB-port and HDMI-port along wioth all the hardware buttons around the edge. And of course, there’s that slide-out keyboard.

Showing just how serious the camera is, the N8 uses a proper Xenon lamp for the “flash”. Take a look: it’s not just an LED but a tube, just like you have in your compact digicam.

IFixit CEO Kyle Wiens likes the N8, as it is so easy to repair. The battery isn’t soldered in, the glass panel isn’t fused to the AMOLED touch-screen and the handset itself is easy to take apert. How easy? “even a Finnish caveman could do it (provided they were evolved enough to handle a Torx screwdriver,” says Wiens.

The N8 looks like a solid phone (literally: “this is the beefiest phone we’ve taken apart all year,” says Kyle), but is still crippled by the Symbian OS. Still, if nothing else, it should take a nice picture.

Nokia N8 Teardown [iFixit. Thanks, Kyle!]

See Also:

• Nokia N8 Packs Every Known Feature into Sleek Slab
• First Look: Nokia's N8 Sports Fantastic Hardware, Tired OS …
• Symbian
• Nokia's Snazzy New Smartphones Stick with Symbian OS

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It was almost a year ago that a senior Samsung VP was quoted expressing plans to drop Symbian. Samsung quickly backtracked on those comments with a vague commitment to its multi-OS strategy. Well, the other shoe just dropped via an email sent to registered Symbian developers advising that Samsung would close its Symbian forum and remove all Symbian content by year’s end. Not that we can blame them — while Symbian is just starting to show signs of recovery the OS has been floundering over the last few years. And Samsung, Nokia’s biggest threat in its bid to democratize smartphone sales, is already plenty busy with Bada, Windows Phone 7, and Android. So while Samsung might still be a member of Symbian Foundation, it, like Sony Ericsson, is doing so in name only.

[Thanks, Rohit]

Samsung terminates support for Symbian originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Numbers don’t lie, right? Now, granted, they don’t always tell the full picture, but these numbers from Statcounter seem fairly straightforward. The lines that you see on the above chart are global numbers pulled from the past year.

Apple’s iPhone has taken a bit of a dip after a couple years of relatively astronomical growth. Symbian, still the leader of the global pack, stumbled a bit, briefly overtaken by Apple, but has more or less maintained its position.

As for BlackBery and Android, the second a third place operating systems have both grown pretty steadily over the past twelve months–and at what looks to be roughly the same rate.

Given what appears to be occurring on the hardware sign of things, these numbers seem surprising. Android really appears to be ready to overtake RIM in a big way. Keep in mind, however, that, again, these are global numbers–the US tends to be its own beast when it comes to mobile operating systems.

Symbian? What’s that?

I’ve had it. I can’t take all this Nokia operating system speculation anymore. The final straw came with a VentureBeat piece citing a “trusted source” that claims “Nokia is now likely to use Windows Phone 7 as an additional platform for its phones.” Enough already. Nokia has a strategy and hiring Stephen Elop away from Microsoft’s Office team isn’t going to change that no matter how much the US media (where Nokia has near zero presence) wishes it were true — if anything, it’s going to accelerate it.

Continue reading Editorial: Nokia’s not going to switch to Android or Windows Phone 7, so stop it already

Editorial: Nokia’s not going to switch to Android or Windows Phone 7, so stop it already originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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