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

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]

Originally Posted by hailgautam

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! 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.

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]

Originally Posted by ksundar

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.

Originally Posted by ksundar

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]

Originally Posted by pathiks

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

Windows Mobile has Opera too & so does Opera Mini

[Pathik]

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

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by aceman

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]

Originally Posted by pathiks

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.

Originally Posted by pathiks

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.

Originally Posted by pathiks

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.

Originally Posted by pathiks

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.

Originally Posted by pathiks

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..

[aceman]

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

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.

Originally Posted by pathiks

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

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]

Originally Posted by aceman

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...