Symbian OS vs Windows v5.0 in Handhelds

[dhan_shh]

Kindly share your views regarding plus and minus of these two OS in popular Handhelds.

[mehulved]

YAOSW!
I have only used symbian OS, so I can post a few pros and cons on it
Pros:-
Wide range of apps available
coupled with nice interface on Nokia phones and SE P series phone, it has become a very popular OS
has backing of various mobile phone manufacturers
has a long history, right since the days of pscion OS
Cons:-
bit of a resource hogger
suspectible to viruses

[Pathik]

symbian os is the best.. Wm is ok.. This is one platform wher ms oses dont hav the monopoly

[krazyfrog]

Windows OS
Pros- Very similar to PC version, hence very less learning curve for most people, Good compatibility with PC, large amount of available software.
Cons- frequent crashes, app close key does not close apps, only minimises them, closing process is more cumbersome than necessary, older versions had volatile memory (i.e. memory gets deleted when battery dies), higher hardware requirements, no. of apps not as large as Symbian, runs a bit slow, cheapest Windows mobile handset is also quiet expensive.
Symbian
Pros- More stable, higher no. written apps, interface similar to regular cell phones, lower hardware requirements, very user friendly, Symbian phones don't cost a bomb, can be had even in inexpensive handsets like 6600 with all the functionality intact, large range of models having Symbian, so more choice and higher chances of finding one suiting ones needs.
Cons- latest version has few stability issues, solved only after updating firmware
There are more points i missed out, but these are the main ones. I myself would prefer Symbian anytime, especially Nokia Series 60.

[iMav]

well i used a hp palm ... and hav 6600 .... if ind that ms has a different feel to it ... it kinda makes u feel like u wrking on ur pc .... where as symbian doesnt let u forget tht ur wrking on another device (pun intended)

[mahendraraut]

hey friends, is there any trick to install windows on my symbian phone?
my model is 6681.

[iMav]

no

[ProDemon]

Windows phones are 80% PDA 20% phone while
symbians are 50% phone, 30% media player, 10% party camera, 10% PDA( just bcoz you can sync info, typing addresses without qweerty = I am not possible )

A great balance of all these stuff is SE p990i, I love SONY

[praka123]

Well,Linux based smartfones are also catching up.

[dhan_shh]

IMHO,if the memory managemnet is tackled (Hey RAM!!,free RAM!!) with the help of available applications (many of them are FREEWARE) like 'Magic Button',Oxios close apps,hibernate apps,Clear temp,etc.,then the 'real' value of a WinMobile will be exposed.

Browsing is a pleasure in WM5 devices with IE plus,Opera (gr8) and Netfront browsers.In Symbian browsing is slow & I remember browsing is comparable only in 7710 and 9500/9300 but at a slower speed!

Many rare apps like 'Remote PC',Voice Commander are of great value if properly used in WM5.

Reading E-Books is just amazing in WM5,In Symbian threre is NO chm reader known so far,no isilo reader for Symbian v9.1,no tagging of pdf books are some of drawbacks with symbian.But they may be available in future.

[hailgautam]

Win OS crashes every time i sneeze, beyond that i need not tell, very unreliable

[NahSoR]

I use Symbian and it is the best!! Only pros NO cons,

and besides Windows OS is a power drainer comparitively

And Symbian is waay better than any other SE, Moto, Samsung OS atleast, that is for sure.......

And Besides It is not very tough to develop Symbian apps on your own, u only need to kno C++

[gxsaurav]

Win OS crashes every time i sneeze, beyond that i need not tell, very unreliable

Which Windows OS? The Desktop one or Mobile, this is discussion about Mobile

I have used various Symbian OS based Phones & Just 2 Windows Mobile based PDA phones, O2 XDA 2 atom & Dell Axim

Symbian

Pros

Extremely wide range of apps, which are also small
Made for smart phones then mobile phones.

Cons

For no appearent reason it gets slow within a month or so.
Adding big memory card makes the OS Slow

Windows Mobile

Pros
Feels like Windows, every thing is familier
Made for PDA then a mobile phone
Large number of apps

Cons
Devices are costly, & usually they are not Mobile phones. Well, it's not made for normal phones anyway like Nokia 7610 or W810i, it's made for a PDA like device

[hailgautam]

Great Doubt! :D reasonable as well considering windows has this reputation of making crashy os. However I was talking about the Mobile OS 5.1. I had a O2 XDA II, had hell a problem with it. almost every day it used to crash. and the battery would drain like anything. However browsing Net on Internet Explorer was too good.

[krazyfrog]

The new browser developed by Nokia for Symbian S60 9.1 is said to be the best and most feature packed mobile browser ever, even better than IE in Windows Mobile. All those in doubt are requested to give it a try. You'll agree its the best way to surf on a cell phone.

[dhan_shh]

O2 Xda II has WM2003 OS,

Recent handhelds mostly support WM5 and some even 'Crossbow' (WM6) after ROM update.

Crashing problem is rare in newer devices!
__________
Newer Symbian S60 9.1 built-in-browser is good,no doubt! But if 'Opera' is installed it makes browsing beautiful.

Symbian UIQ 9.1 devices (SE W950i,M600) have built-in Opera browsers,they are better than Nokia devices like N93,N73,E61 etc.,

Older Nokia models like 7710,9500/9300 support built-in Opera browser,

Still,browsing in WM5 needs to be experienced than explained! jus gr8!

[ksundar]

But...Windows mobiles are very Bulky,very expensive even their smartphones.

I'm happy with my 6630 with loads of applications,no hanging,reasonable speed,decent browsing and easy messaging!

I've not used any windows mobile,for me it look more complicated and costlier,no need for a confusing stuff! when u have 'user friendly' Symbian!

[aceman]

I'm happy with my 6630 with loads of applications,no hanging,reasonable speed,decent browsing and easy messaging!
!
Programming with J2ME is a horrendous mess when you can program with .Net CF2.0,expect lot more application soon as an Integerated IDE is just now developed which ties together Windows Mobile/Pocket Pc/Platform builder (some thing i use for bsp developement) into VS2005.
No more eVC++........yeah.


I've not used any windows mobile,for me it look more complicated and costlier,no need for a confusing stuff! when u have 'user friendly' Symbian
!

Depends on the user WM/Pocket pc was never targetted at the average customer......it was more the buisness people (palm,blackberry..etc) and they do find the features very usefull and thus is naturally costiler.Do note that at this segment (buisness) we are doing quite good.
Now windows mobile till now ( till Ce 5.0 and Mobile 6.0) , I do agree were very constrained by microsoft deciding what to have and what not to have (and coupled with a 32mb/32 process limitation), but things have changed now, from Ce 6.0 (and the Photon mobile SDK to be released to oem's by the year end ) the
a)UI ( the clumsy,confusing one you refered to) can be customised by the OEM
(for techy guys: UI is only a shell, now any OEM can customize it for their end, just like the iPhone UI for example)
b)It fully supports direct show(atleast the video capture graph) thus camera quality and developement time will for camera will drastically reduce.
c)Has a 2 Gb VM space for user process...........and supports 32k process....well practically somewhere around 100-200 by current H/W limitations.
d)Kernel is completely re-written ...it is lot more stable.....reliable.......efficient.
e)Drivers like Gwes,n/w,fs have been moved to kernel space and run as a kernel mode driver.
and best of all
f)You can program a mobile device with .Net
In may be a year/2 year's time we should be able to give symbian,linux and the wannebe phone (iPhone) a run for their money.

[mail2and]

IT would be better if we talk about the latest Symbian OS i.e. 9.1

The latest Nokia phones with OS 9.1 have Webkit as their browser. It supports RSS feeds, multiple windows, AJAX, Java etc. It also renders full pages in a very unique way.

If you do not want to fit the entire page in a screen, then you can chose to render the full page and scroll. When you scroll, a small pop-up appears, with the screenshot of the page currently open, indicating which part of the page you are currently on.

[gxsaurav]

JAVA was dying, Mobile phones saved it, & i myself prefer java over .net for mobile phones, cos one program runs on any mobile phone, such as Opera Mini

Windows Mobile 6.0, Photon brings a lot of core changes, it changes the way the UI is drwan on screen, & opens up possibility for hardware acceleration of the UI in phones too (DirectDraw is included)

IE 7 core will be there in Photon, Winodws Mobile 6 still has old IE 6 core, with little enhancement i guess

[Pathik]

symbian has opera,opera mini,netfront,avantgo,thunder hawk, etc etc.. Wm has ie only

[gxsaurav]

symbian has opera,opera mini,netfront,avantgo,thunder hawk, etc etc.. Wm has ie only
Windows Mobile has Opera (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/) too & so does Opera Mini

[Pathik]

ya wat abt the rest??? Wat abt the extensive software support that symbian has

[mehulved]

Programming with J2ME is a horrendous mess when you can program with .Net CF2.0,expect lot more application soon as an Integerated IDE is just now developed which ties together Windows Mobile/Pocket Pc/Platform builder (some thing i use for bsp developement) into VS2005.
No more eVC++........yeah. Hello, what happened to symbian? Symbian apps can be developed in c++, python and .net, too. And 6630 is a symbian phone.

[aceman]

JAVA was dying, Mobile phones saved it, & i myself prefer java over .net for mobile phones, cos one program runs on any mobile phone, such as Opera Mini

What is time for development ? There of legions and legions of .Net programmers out there, who can easily adapt to Windows Ce development.The question is not personal preference but time to market.Nothing beats the combination of C/C++ ( native) with C# (managed).
Symbian's days are numbered.


Winodws Mobile 6 still has old IE 6 core, with little enhancement i guess

Windows mobile 6 should be called as "Quick fix engineering" for Windows mobile 5.01 to support office 2007.....there is nothing to look forward to in Mobile 6.0.


Windows Mobile 6.0, Photon brings a lot of core changes,

This will now most probably be called as Mobile 7.0 (aka photon), but the core changes are more to do with the base kernel rather than the SDK.


it changes the way the UI is drwan on screen, & opens up possibility for hardware acceleration of the UI in phones too (DirectDraw is included)

Actually direct draw is already available in WM 5.0 and also in Direct3d support.The issue is H/W support........things are changing now for example one reference design I am working with has a dedicated h/w acceleration engine coupled to the LCD controller.
Abt the UI part what I mentioned is that, we were stuck with the UI which MS designs for mobile till WM 6.0 ( remember it is only a shell) , which is very clumsy for normal users actually .............now with Photon i beileve that the OEM's can customise the shell.............just a simple C# app........just imagine one shell when you want to be in office...........one UI when you are in home..........possiblites are endless.
Just Imagine , in future is ms ports a stripped down version of the Aero interface of the Vista.............we live in intresting times (:.............this is a real possiblity and not a dream since one embedded processor I work with clocks ~1.2Ghz.

ya wat abt the rest??? Wat abt the extensive software support that symbian has
Exactly what support you want to have ?
Windows Ce has office,exchange sever,media player,ATL,COM,Direct Draw,Direct Show,Outlook,Messenger..........etc,anything you see in a desktop should now be possible in windows ce.Wince pocket pc caters to the high end buisness segment and I don't believe that they find anything missing.
As I was saying .Net CF 2.0 was released only now and earlier wince had a limitaion of 32mb/32process...........Now we have CF2.0 and 2Gb VM per process and with all this the image can be about 40 Mb.Compare this around half a gb for os on the iPhone.
The amount of research ( and money) which goes into MS developing and marketing Windows ce is limitless and as Wince killed palm os in corporate segment , it has the potential to do the same for symbian.
The problem with MS was that they did not want to club to many features into Windows Ce since this will adversely affect the
a)Windows Xp embedded
b)Windows Xp for laptops
The underlying H/W easily supports all the features.Ms now see's the protential (and the threat from iPhone and Symbian) and WM can only go one way and that is Up with the new features.

[Pathik]

arey mene wo sab kidhar bola?? Gx ne bola tha ask him.. :D

[aceman]

Hello, what happened to symbian? Symbian apps can be developed in c++, python and .net, too. And 6630 is a symbian phone.

Yes Symbian is the dominant force purely for the sake that It has more market share but from a programmers perspective it is irrelevant.
When compared with the actual number of 3rd party apps running on Symbian to WM you will notice that WM is the dominant force.
Windows Mobile/Pocket PC/Wince is Developed for and with the Idea of running of 3rd party apps unlike symbian.
Regarding the .Net thing
a)There are some tools to target VS2005 to Non-WM devices but this does NOT use CF2.0, only the IDE is used. (Just like how I use platform builder plugin for VS2005 for my OS development,nothing more)
b)Regarding developeing in .NetCF 2.0 for symbian....I will be better of programming in Java since .Net is by itself consists of three modules (1) class libraries, (2) execution engine, and (3) platform adaptation layer
One can even forget about proting the PAL for Symbian, it is structured around wince and by the time you deal with the client server framework issues of symbian,Does not support static or global variables in dll's in symbian...........etc, well lets forget about support of .Net CF 2.0 for Symbian.....it is a windows only thing.
Lets face it........programming for symbian is difficult what ever way you look at it where as for WM any Windows desktop developer is a potential WM developer.


arey mene wo sab kidhar bola?? Gx ne bola tha ask him.. :D
Sorry for that pathiks......... (:

We are currently doing a Blitzkrieg on the enterprise market..........WM may not be able to capture the consumer market today or 2row or the day after but give us time...........the photon I believe is being designed with broader market appeal ( at-least as per the roadmap form microsoft) and it is only a matter of time before WM dominates the Mobile market ( and the automative,IP tv,Set to boxes.............etc) like what ms did in the desktop.

[ksundar]

@aceman,thanx for ur detailed lecture regarding Windows handhelds,I remember my classroom with my prof's lecture (I don't understand either!)

Initially I thought only the devices are complicated,now its clear the programmers are even more!

NOT that I'm against windows,I'm only ignorant at present,I'll learn it slowly,

Symbian is for simple,user friendly people! I'll stick to it now.

[eminemence]

In may be a year/2 year's time we should be able to give symbian,linux and the wannebe phone (iPhone) a run for their money.
And you think others will not innovate till that time??
Keep waiting for your time...
Also with the hardware requirements of WM its not so easy to keep the WM device prices low.What WM device manufacturers have still not learnt is making a good mix of hw components with the right software.
An average person really does not care if its 32MB process space or 4GB, for them the ease of use is of utmost important.Also they expect a mobile phone to look and work like a phone,everything else is just additional and won't matter to 70% of the junta.
--eminemence.

[Pathik]

dude watever u do... no other platform ll be able to catch up wit symbain atleast in the near future...

[praka123]

@tleast save mobile platform from M$ monopoly.symbian will do:)

[ProDemon]

Looks like everyone wants 100s of appz in his mobile.

One good question to mobile appz lovers

Leave these basic features
- PIM
- Browser and messenger
- media managers and players

can you list any other app you use regularly?

[Pathik]

@prodemon the above apps only constitute abt 60% of my apps.. Apart 4m that i use ftp clients, advanced alarm, python re, download managers, call recorders and other stuff...

[Josan]

well ,when it comes to the best ,mobile os than the symbian is the best ,,,far better than the

windows os symbian mobiles can be compared to windows pc
symbian is more inovative than the windows!!!!!!!!!!!

[aceman]

And you think others will not innovate till that time??
--eminemence.

Sure they will, but the beauty of WinMobile is that anyone can ( well almost anyone) can make a phone, just like Dell,Hp can assemble a PC running on Windows.If you call innovation as just the UI part,well anyone can play that game can't they ?.Crossbow is just a stop gap.Just look at the deepfish browser from the mobile team, This is out even before the much hyped safari for iPhone.


Also with the hardware requirements of WM its not so easy to keep the WM device prices low.--eminemence.
Care to explain what is there in a WM phone requirement which is not in any other Smart phone ? It just says ARM processor,240*120 screen or bigger.......etc which is part of any smart phone.


What WM device manufacturers have still not learnt is making a good mix of hw components with the right software..
Excatly which manufacturer you are taking about ? I worked for HTC,Currently with some japan based company and best of my knowledge the phones H/W is quite good.Lets not forget that Palm offers windows mobile with its phones, don't they ? and shall we say palm also is poor ?



An average person really does not care if its 32MB process space or 4GB,
for them the ease of use is of utmost important. ..

Let me make one point very clear here and that is Windows Mobile phones were targetted towards the enterprise market (aka Blackberry,palm.......etc) and like it or not/belive it or not MS and WinMobile is the leader here and will continue to be.It was never intended (at least with the current prices ) for the market where the iPhone is pitched at.This is where the latest windows mobile ( called as Photon) comes into fray.
As far as S/W goes Windows Mobile (aka till crossbow) were based on Windows Ce 5.0 which was originally for the Dreamcast, yes I personally know many companies who were forced to hire consultants to get around the 32Mb/32Process limitations which limited what you can or cannot do in S/W.
Average person will care when he sees HighDef in in Mobile , woudn't he ? and this is were the new kernel comes.


dude watever u do... no other platform ll be able to catch up wit symbain atleast in the near future...

I unfortunately do not share your optimism for symbian due to the following points

-->Tools.Nothing comes closer to ease of development with .NetCf and Vs when compared with the
C++ and Codewarrior, if you feel Symbians tools are better feel free to correct me.

-->Compatability with desktop environment.Lets face it there is Legions of capable desktop programmers who can
switch to Windows obile development in No time.

-->One unified SDK.Any windows mobile application developer can target a single SDK for any phone, lets
not even start taking of differnt versions of symbian within the same company.

-->Better support of Video capture interfaces.........etc in the new version of Ce 6.0.
It is true Windows Mobile phone do not have the "WOW" factor, well to be fair they had it till the iPhone showed up, but with the amount of $ which everybody is investing it is just a matter of time.


symbian is more inovative than the windows!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't see 720p on a Mobile,I don't see voip in a mobile,I don't see VGA,XVGA in a mobile.....etc.If you are taking about only about applications then I would agree since symbians installed base is more but
if we provide you video playback,High resolution games,Outlook,Ms pocket office in a single phone then windows mobile is clearely the winner here.

Bottom line if Nokia,Sony,Motorola.....etc want to stand a chance they sonner of later would have to abandon symbian for either Linux (trust me Nokia is trying) or windows mobile (highly unlikely).Either way fight will be like Windows Ce Vs Os-X Vs Linux and the winner will be, well lets wait and see -::).

[eminemence]

That was a huuuuuuuuuuuuge and good reply. :)
Well here are my "few" words.

Sure they will, but the beauty of WinMobile is that anyone can ( well almost anyone) can make a phone, just like Dell,Hp can assemble a PC running on Windows.If you call innovation as just the UI part,well anyone can play that game can't they ?

HW manufacturers can do the same with Symbian.And Symbian provides just the base OS layer and a basic UI. It's upto device manufacturer's to customise the UI and five a unique LAF to their device range.
Am not sure,but would like to know,does WM provide the same LAF related flexibility.

It just says ARM processor,240*120 screen or bigger.......etc which is part of any smart phone.

The screen is something that is seems to limit WM again.No such thing with Symbian,they can and have supported screen sizes right from 128 x 160 to 240 x 320.When I said right mix,I meant a right mix of components that would reduce the total cost of the device.

-->Tools.Nothing comes closer to ease of development with .NetCf and Vs when compared with the
C++ and Codewarrior, if you feel Symbians tools are better feel free to correct me.

VS as well as Carbide are supported for Symbian C++ programming.
And yes just some news for you:
http://www.redfivelabs.com/default.aspx


-->Compatability with desktop environment.Lets face it there is Legions of capable desktop programmers who can
switch to Windows obile development in No time.

Well I haven't seen them doing that 'great' switch in the past 3 to 4 years.


-->One unified SDK.Any windows mobile application developer can target a single SDK for any phone, lets
not even start taking of differnt versions of symbian within the same company.

Agree on this one point.
As for the features that you claim to make WM a winner are also present in symbian devices.
I am also aware of the initiative within Nokia to move towards Linux to do away with the license fees that they have to pay to Symbian.But frankly speaking Linux ports to Mobile have been not that successful to make an "OpenOS", as Symbian has been able to.
Anyways am tired of typing so much,so will cut it short and may the Best OS win.
--eminemence.

[..:: Free Radical ::..]

Well one thing I do want in Symbian phones is fassssssssssssst processors and graphics acceleration. There are so many good emulators available for WM and crappy ones for Symbian. Symbian being an RTOS allocates greater priority for the system tasks and software can achieve only so much.
The closest they came to a gamer phone was the n-gage. I bought the disaster :(( (It even died on me after only an year of intensive use)

What I want?
Give me a PSP like gaming device anyday which runs on Linux, has fast processing with good emulator support, a phone, 3G, ebook reading capabilities like WM . I'll buy it the same day. :D

[Quiz_Master]

And you think others will not innovate till that time??
Keep waiting for your time...
Also with the hardware requirements of WM its not so easy to keep the WM device prices low.What WM device manufacturers have still not learnt is making a good mix of hw components with the right software.
An average person really does not care if its 32MB process space or 4GB, for them the ease of use is of utmost important.Also they expect a mobile phone to look and work like a phone,everything else is just additional and won't matter to 70% of the junta.
--eminemence.

Yes thats the point.

Symbian is more of a SmartPhone OS, whereas WM is a OS specifically made for PDAs.
Symbian is good cause it runs on low system requirements.
WM is good cause it has more rich feature set.

But they have totally different target users.
I believe that WM can never replace in SmartPhone front and Symbian can never take place of WM in a PDA or Handheld PC.

[eminemence]

Yes thats the point.

Symbian is more of a SmartPhone OS, whereas WM is a OS specifically made for PDAs.
Symbian is good cause it runs on low system requirements.
WM is good cause it has more rich feature set.

But they have totally different target users.
I believe that WM can never replace in SmartPhone front and Symbian can never take place of WM in a PDA or Handheld PC.
Well not really,
Symbian is the predecessor of the EPOC OS which was used in Psion devices.
Check the info here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion
--eminemence.

[Quiz_Master]

Well not really,
Symbian is the predecessor of the EPOC OS which was used in Psion devices.
Check the info here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion
--eminemence.

You mean symbian is the successor of EPOC. I allready knew it.
But symbian in its current form is suitable only for mobiles and low quality calculating and consumer devices (such as e-book readers, e-mail readers, etc.)

[dreamzchm]

Symbian Rocks! just plain in interface and stable and fairly large no. of apps available and it would have been even better if something like the WinXp "System restore " facility was there!

[aryayush]

Wm is ok.. This is one platform wher ms oses dont hav the monopolyThey only have a monopoly in the desktop operating system market. It's not as if they have a monopoly everywhere and only their mobile operating system is a minority, as your statement suggests. :)

[eminemence]

I think we need to lock this thread till WM emerges as a market leader :D .
--eminemence.

[Pathik]

well i meant "this is the only platform in mobile and desktop oses wher ms doesnt hav the monopoly.." :D

[aryayush]

But they do have a monopoly among desktop operating systems. You are confused, mate. :)

[Pathik]

read my above statement again..i said that this(mobile platform) is the only platform of the two(mobile and desktop) where ms doesnt hav a monopoly.. That means that ms does hav a monopoly in the desktop segment..

[aryayush]

Oh, I get it. :) OK.

[aceman]

."HW manufacturers can do the same with Symbian.And Symbian provides just the base OS layer and a basic UI. It's upto device manufacturer's to customise the UI and five a unique LAF to their device range."
And excatly how many symbian based manufactures/phones are out there leaving Nokia and Sony and some other big names, even linux has more makers than symbian.

"Am not sure,but would like to know,does WM provide the same
LAF related flexibility."
I would like to assume that LAF=Look and Feel.In this case the answer is
No, atleast not yet till WinMobile 5.2 (aka WinMobile 6.0/Crossbow) which is running on Wince 5.0 since these mobile customers wanted a uniform interface.
In CE 6.0 based winmobile (the 3rd generation kernel) called as
"Photon" the LAF can be customised by the OEM.Since I do not work with ms,I do not know much about it but rest assured you will have a micro/mini laptop in your hands, with all D3D/Direct Show (Div X here i come).......etc.
The Photon is what is what is targetted at the average joe, crossbow is only targetted at RIM customers and you will agree that we ate this market, heck even palm is using WM now (: (:.

"The screen is something that is seems to limit WM again.
No such thing with Symbian,they can and have supported screen
sizes right from 128 x 160 to 240 x 320.When I said right mix,
I meant a right mix of components that would reduce the total
cost of the device."

Sorry this is wrong, i have given below the WinMobile H/W requirments,please
read below.Any H/W which can support symbian , can /will support WM more effciently.Since the WM customers are enterprise users the current H/W's has some heafty features but it is not that it will not run in less powerfull H/W.
I have seen WM deveices on PXA270 at ~500 MHz and OMAP7xx at ~100MHz.Please see the attached photo.

"VS as well as Carbide are supported for Symbian C++ programming.And yes just some news for you:"

I had even used this so called .Net class and trust me it is
horrible.For starters try writing a Camera application in .NetCF and try doingthe same in this , you will know what I am taking about.
Having a class is no big deal, what functionality it does is the catch and here the only salvation for Symbian is C++.

"Well I haven't seen them doing that 'great' switch in the past 3 to 4 years."

I don't know about you but in my company .NetCF developers with pocket
PC SDK is in such a hot demand and there was hardly anybody a few years back.A lot of .Net developers are migrating to .Net CF and it is only growing.

"As for the features that you claim to make WM a winner are
also present in symbian devices."

This means it has Direct Draw/D3D/MPEG encoders/Direct show/Unified Audio model (UAM)/.Net CF/Video accelaration/Pocket office/Exchange server/3D Audio (SRS Mobile HD)/Deep fish/Unified SDK/Wide BSP support.........etc you are making me laugh (: (:.If feel symbian has all these or better please post, lets discuss.WM has lot in common with its desktop brother.

"Anyways am tired of typing so much,so will cut it
short and may the Best OS win."
and let me also play my small part in making it happen. -::), since I get my bread and butter, actually high range gaming rig,XBOX360......etc by developing for WM/Wince.

"There are so many good emulators available for WM and
crappy ones for Symbian."

The only emulator I know of is the one available in VS2005, if know anything else which is better please post here.

"Symbian being an RTOS allocates greater priority for
the system tasks and software can achieve only so much."

I am totally confused here on what this means,
second windows ce is a HARD REAL TIME os, please elaborate further.

Give me a PSP like gaming device anyday which runs on Linux,
has fast processing with good emulator support, a phone, 3G,
ebook reading capabilities like WM . I'll buy it the same day."
Why do U want linux on this ? Developing app is crap on those.
very soon WM will reach a processing power to rival some old desktops.There is a processor callled as PXA320 which runs at 800 Mhz ( no there is no typo).


"Symbian is more of a SmartPhone OS,
whereas WM is a OS specifically made for PDAs."

Let me make one more point clear , WM is Not a OS , in fact it is sort
of a middleware running on WinCe.Wince is the OS.WM is made for enterpise users (RIM) and we Blitzkrieged this market (If palm is anything to go by).This does not mean that we are sitting and watching it's laurels.
The latest yet to be released WM SDK called as "Photon" (previous WM 6.0 is called as cross bow) is targetted at the symbian's target segments.

"I believe that WM can never replace in SmartPhone front and Symbian can never take place of WM in a PDA or Handheld PC."

People said the same thing for playstation/office/os.....etc, now they are saying the same for WM/Storage server (Linux bring it ON)...etc.If anything ms and its OEM's have enough money and some smart manpower and have the need to capture emerging markets.
People say so many things, we just make it happen.

"Symbian Rocks! just plain in interface and stable and fairly large no.
of apps available "

WM was never targetted at the average joe, please see the keynote speech of crossbow if you have any doubts, it for a segment where the Symbian interface just won't cut.

"They only have a monopoly in the desktop operating system market.It's not as if they have a monopoly everywhere and only their
mobile operating system is a minority, as your statement suggests."

"Microsoft,change the world or go home" (: (: yeah.

"I think we need to lock this thread till WM emerges as a market leader "
then you will then have to unlock it very soon.

Also from what is see in this discussion people are only intrested
in discussing the UI part, I can make a symbian like UI in a day's time ,its just that plain and simple.
The core of the OS is what sets WM apart from symbian/linux..etc. No other OS has so many SDK's,Frameworks,Componets like winmobile.WM did have a very nasty VM limitation which is rectified now in CE 6.0 and the new set up resembles XP more closely with only a fraction of the processing power required.
For example for year 2006 Windriver (Vx Works ) was No :1 ,XP EMbedded was No:2,Wince was No:3 and DSP/BIOS was No:4.Vx works market segment is totally different to ours,DSP/BIOS is a free OS anyway for DSP processors,which means MS is the fatest growing Embedded OS available and will continue and are eating into symbian,linux and others.

thus to conclude
a)Symbian will die just like palm os was killed by WM.
b)Linux,though is very bulky and slow for a embedded system (Montavista is as clostly
as WM anyway with not even 10% if the features).
c)OS-X mobile (or whatever they call it ) will pose a good competion in the mutimedia segemet (forget RIM it is our's now) but with the amount of OEM's for WM and MS pushing the Embedded segemet aggresively, in future it will be like 80% WM , 5% linux and 15% OSX.

[Pathik]

a)Symbian will die just like palm os was killed by WM.
b)Linux,though is very bulky and slow for a embedded system (Montavista is as clostly
as WM anyway with not even 10% if the features).
c)OS-X mobile (or whatever they call it ) will pose a good competion in the mutimedia segemet (forget RIM it is our's now) but with the amount of OEM's for WM and MS pushing the Embedded segemet aggresively, in future it will be like 80% WM , 5% linux and 15% OSX.
make it 80% symbian, 10% WM, 7% OSX, 3% Linux...
Palm OS was killed by WM cos it wasnt widely spread as SYMBIAN is...
btw Symbian smartfones r made for the general public whereas WM fones r for rich executives...
also the main war in the music fone segment will be between SE and iPhone...
WM, at present can compete just in the smartfone area...

[freshseasons]

make it 80% symbian, 10% WM, 7% OSX, 3% Linux...
Palm OS was killed by WM cos it wasnt widely spread as SYMBIAN is...
btw Symbian smartfones r made for the general public whereas WM fones r for rich executives...
also the main war in the music fone segment will be between SE and iPhone...
WM, at present can compete just in the smartfone area...
This thread was basically about who being the best or better.I dont subscribe to the view that Windows Mobiles are for Rich Executives. I have 02 Xda mini S ( WM 5) and i bought it after deep research where i found WM to have the more matured games and Rich data base like , FIFA, NFS,Doom and more 3d Games base. MS OneNote and Microsoft Voice commander works only under WM.Wm has better softwares replacements for which symbian seem to offer.
Upgrading the phone under Windows Mobile is a breeze.The Radio Roms are freely available and there are not much chances of bricking the devices under windows mobile PC as Firmware replacement is easier else something goes work.
Infact WM's just about does what laptop seems to do and if i wanted a laptop replacement i had prefer Windows mobile based phone.
There are lots of more goodies for WM and are a fun phone to use.
For example how about i am posting this from my Mobile.

[assasin]

For example how about i am posting this from my Mobile.

that aint a big deal dood.even i'm posting this from my Symbian OS9.1 fone.

[Pathik]

^^ me 2... nd for a laptop replacement u need to have a laptop type of budget too... aint that meant for RICH execs??
also there are many people who hav access to the internet only thru their cellfone (we connect it to our pc as well)

[freshseasons]

But then arnt Laptops getting cheaper than most phones.Look at Nokia N Series phones n91,n95...we get laptop quite cheaper than these phones.
But come to think of a real laptop replacement phones..The things that comes the closest .Not just being able to do things but being able to do those things with the same ease of the laptop.
Windows 5.0 are really pretty ahead.With windows mobile 5 we can hae all .Net developing program but symbian loses on that front.
We understand usually and take it that iphone from mac is going to be revolutionary. But Windows 5 already does what iphone will do.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/macworld2007/windows-mobile-5-already-does-what-the-iphone-does-227778.php

Read the review..its not just copy and paste but think over it when we are done reading.
Somewhere iphone will have multi touch and rich text email which is not in Windows Mobile.But then Windows mobile is already there in the market and by the time Apple comes with iphone windows will be ready with WM 2007 somewhere around that time..

[dhan_shh]

Recently,I updated my 'jasjar' with "Crossbow" (WM6) ROM,now the real power of jasjar is realized by me.

Excellent Mail client,far better than any device known so far (Only Nokia 9500,S80 device has near equal mail client but without push email),

Browsing is faster and good with Opera and PIE plus.I am able to browse and access 'Net Banking' using Opera,I don't think any other device does this!

New Adobe Reader LE occupies less space and faster and good in addition to other e book readers,

Only drawback with 'Crossbow' ROM is poor reception of 3G which is expected to get corrected in next update (IN India we are not affected as there is no 3G!)


Newer Symbian v9.2 like N95 is amazing,no doubt! But still lacks the punch of WM,of course this my personal opinion!

[oval_man]

#$&*^^*&%^%#%#w$&^**)_)*&^t$%@@%#$*%(&_+*)__***&^&*

%$#@&^^%()&^^%(((&^%$&*^()(&&^$#%$%^&&*&(*_*_((*&^%^

**&^^%#^&*&%%$@$$%^&^&*(&*(&_)(**&^%$&^(^*&*&&%^^$&

[Pathik]

^^ wtf !!

[ksundar]

My God! still this thread is active? Mods why don't you put a big LOCK to this thread?

I'm allergic to 'windows',prefer 'aisle' !