Symbian OS vs Windows v5.0 in Handhelds

[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]

Originally Posted by eminemence

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.

Originally Posted by eminemence

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.

Originally Posted by eminemence

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 ?

Originally Posted by eminemence

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.

[Quiz_Master]

Originally Posted by eminemence

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]

Originally Posted by Quiz_Master

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]

Originally Posted by eminemence

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]

Originally Posted by pathiks

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

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.

[eminemence]

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

[Pathik]

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

[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]

Originally Posted by aceman

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]

Originally Posted by pathiks

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]

Originally Posted by freshseasons

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/macworld2...oes-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' !