First Steps With Symbian OS
So, have you got a nice shiny new smartphone phone for Christmas? And you've found this site? Good. Let's take a few first steps in the big wide world of Symbian.
What phones are Symbian Powered?
Series 60 (The Nokia Interface)
Nokia N-Gage, 6600, 3650, 3660, 7650, 7610, Siemens SX-1, Sendo X and many, many more.
UIQ (Sony Ericsson Interface)
Sony Ericcson P910, P900, P800, Motorola A920/A925/A1000 (on the "3" Network).
Series 80
Nokia Communicator 9210, 9210i and 9290, Nokia Communicator 9300, 9500.
What Can It Do
Lots. These smartphones are pocket computers, that have just as much power as the early Pentium PC's that were dream machines just five year ago. You've got storage memory from 4MB on the 7650 and 3650, all the way up to 1GB with an MMC card in the Nokia 9500. As a rule of thumb, a 100K application Symbian OS is about the same as a 5MB application on a PC, so even a small-memoried smartphone should comfortably hold 15-20 reasonable applications or games.
What Are Good Applications To Start With
For Series 60
Symbianware have Stacker, an application that takes the applications and compresses them so they take up less room in your phone's memory. WildPalm have a Gameboy emulator, that allows you to run Gameboy games on your phone. Finally, look at Epocware's Handy Book, that can allow you to read Palm .DOC format eBooks - there are thousands of books available from Memoware.
For UIQ
Cesinc's QuickOffice lets you open, read and edit Microsoft Word and Excell Spreadsheets on your smartphone - muh more useful than the built in file viewers. OggPlay is a replacement music file player - the OggVorbis format is much more efficient than MP3, see 3-Lib for more details. Finally, for some fun, have a look at Cascata Games, for a wide selection of classic board and strategy game. Checkers and Omar Sharif Bridge are particularly recommended.
Where Can I Visit
Well you've found here! So make sure you visit the Forums and join in with the chat, ask questions, and get involved. My-Symbian is another community site, which focuses on software releases and updates. Mobitopia provides a wide ranging look at the whole Mobile Device market, not just Symbian, and it's a good read as well.
Enjoy Symbian, and enjoy All About Symbian. You've got one of the greatest and most powerful phones on the market. Stick with us and find out how to get the best out of it.
For CommunicatorsFreEPOC have a lot of free software. Two highlights include ABP (A Banking Manager) and Vexed (a lovely puzzle game). RMR Software have lots of good quality apploications. RMRTask is a full To-Do application, with a lot of functionality.