In a branding equivalent of quietly dumping a corpse off a pier in the middle of the night, Nokia is retiring the Symbian moniker for good. Except it’s not dead — now it’s just called Nokia Belle. Belle! Ha! Ha.
Unlike the moment when ATI ceased to be a thing, I doubt anyone will shed a nostalgic tear for Symbian. It was always an awful, putrid piece of phone software, an anchor that dragged Nokia off-course and out of favour. Let’s just pretend it never happened and be glad Nokia’s holding hands with Windows Phone. Belle — hahaha. See you in heck. [Nokia via Engadget]
The Other Luke
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 8:43 AMShed a tear for those who still have a Symbian phone. only 3 months of plan left. How much I hate this thing can not be measured.
Ash
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 9:48 AMWhy are you still with Symbian in this day and age really confuses me.
Adam
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 9:50 AMsome people don’t want smart phones. some people prefer functionality over wank
The Other Luke
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 9:11 PMWhen I got my phone (i8910) it was one of the better mid range handsets out there. Only problem, it came with Symbian. This is a samsung btw. Symbian wasn’t only limited to Nokia.
I would of went Android, but at the time there wasn’t any out to get. Symbian can burn.
TSH
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 11:15 AMI had to get rid of my S60 phone for WP7. I was going to tough it out, but I just couldn’t do it for another four months.
Sym^3 is good, and Belle will make it much better. But despite all the things I like about it (and there are plenty) in the end I had to take the pragmatic approach.
Adam
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 9:49 AMare you serious? symbian was awesome. nokia phones in general were awesome. I had an android phone then went back to using my nokia e63 because it was so much better.
Peter
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 11:01 AMTry the E72, my housemate hated the fucking shit out of it.
michael
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 10:04 AMi dont see the point in saying nokia symbian is. really if you think back to some of the early nokia symbian handsets, these were the best phones out there.
sure they should have moved on from this platform sooner but i think that with out it phone would not be where they are today.
i gotta say, i think nokia was the best phone maker in the 90s
spread the love people, although now days i have next to no time for nokia, just saying
michael
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 10:07 AMIll try that again
I dont see the point in saying nokia symbian is no good. really if you think back to some of the early nokia symbian handsets, these were the best phones out there. truly inspired and so much more powerful that almost anything else.
and APPS, mad bluetooth hacking apps!!!
sure they should have moved on from this platform sooner but i think that with out it smart phones would not be where they are today.
i gotta say, i think nokia was the best phone maker in the 90s
spread the love people, although now days i have next to no time for nokia, just saying
Jay
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 10:08 AMCan’t anyone read? It’s a name change — probably because of the scary things you find if you make an unfortunate type on google
Fenix
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 10:59 AMSymbian was awesome…. so was my SNES/N64 and Game & Watches…. does that mean you should use them as a primary method of gaming today? (Ok… the game and watches are still acceptable)
For me Symbian was dead about 3-4 years ago and I’m happy to wave it goodbye… Hopefully Nokia can get back to where they were one day.
TSH
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 11:23 AMThis is basically where I stand. It’s truly unfair to say Symbian was “always an awful, putrid piece of phone software”. It is fair to say that it dragged Nokia off-course, which is mainly due to Nokia failing to take into account the change in the wind brought by iOS and Android.
Prior to iPhone, the only other major smartphone platform was Windows Mobile. You want to talk about a system that was awful…
After four years of failure after failure, to understand and adapt to the new expectations of smartphone users, Nokia are finally starting to pick themselves up again. Sym^3 is a fine system for applicance-like smartphones, especially with the Belle update. WP7 is great for flagships. And S40 is perfect for featurephones. With OS development being handled by Accenture and MS, Nokia can concentrate on what they do well: good handset design.
It’ll take some time (years, most likely) but Nokia will be back.
Peter
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 11:07 AMSo, does Belle still have the shit confusing menu system with options for customising the home screen spread about infinite sub-menus? If so, rebranding it is a waste of time and money.
markk
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 12:23 PMI really think it was sites like this that made evryone believe Symbian is a waste of space. Belle looks promising and I have to say that after 3 weeks of Android 3.x its not wothout its problems either.
I’ve also seen many friends, who aren’t ‘power users’ like most Giz readers, truely struggle with Android. If you’re not inclined to spend time customising a phone and making all the tweeks you probably shouldn’t get an Android or symbian phone, the iPhone is what you would be looking at :)
Reece
Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 12:30 PMLong live Me… Oh wait never mind.
Matt
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 4:57 PM@Peter
That’s exactly the point. Nokia had a menu system. It’s a menu..?
It’s not an iOS or Anroid where you just dump everything onto your homescreens. You use a menu to organise and arrange things.
Maybe it just appeals to people like me, who are extremely OCD