There's a superb article published today over on Mobile R'n'R by Rita el-Khoury, listing the ten things you should do first with a new Symbian smartphone to ensure you get the very best experience, from replacing the browser and social clients to automating and customising the look and feel. This is one to bookmark and recommend to friends who are eying up the likes of the Nokia N8 and C7, methinks....

You got your N8, C7 or C6-01, the latest, the greatest from Finland. You were promised the moon, and in some aspects you’re damn sure getting the moon, but in others, it feels like you’re drilling a hole to the center of the earth, struggling to get by on day-to-day use with your new phone. You glance across the room to your friends with their fancy iPhones and HTCs and Samsungs and Nexus that “just work”, and you wish you had given up the first class camera and video, the amazing Ovi Maps, the top-class build quality, and gone with the flow. After all, everyone is convinced Symbian is yesterday’s story.

Not.

I have been an iOS user for over a year, an Android user for almost a month, and trust me, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Symbian. It needs some polishing, some developers. Honestly, there’s almost nothing you can’t do on Symbian once you know the drill. And here’s the drill.

More in the full article. Recommended.