Symbian in Motion - Latest Comments in S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

stuart forster — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:04:48 -0000

The WM homescreen is great,that is beyond doubt.S60 has some advantages over WM6 professional eg one handed use,the way s60 handle data connections and of coarse multmedia,but if you were to compare like for like applications then WM destroys s60.I have yet to see a s60 multimedia application that can play .wmv,.mov,asf etc!Have you noticed how crummy s60 browsers are?Hype about safari is just that.Netfront 3.3 or 3.4 for WM has a multitude of options(netfront on s60 os8 is a poor man's version)Opera 8.65 for WM with flash player 7 installed can stream youtube-s60 are miles behind.Every s60 application pales into insignificance when you see what WM has to offer.Another gripe about the overrated s60.The os is totally closed, you don't even have access to system files,again in total contrast to wm.If you have a problem with WM you can edit the registry or a developer will create a small program to rectify any problems,with the dreaded s60 you have to wait for fw upgrades.Did you know with WM you can make your OWN firmware,try and do that on a s60!!Keep convincing yourself s60 is great,your not alone,infact their's millions of idiots just like you.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

ersin — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:18:03 -0000

thnks

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

boirked — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:38:01 -0000

Oh yeah try WM6 on a device like the TyTN II.You will see it is ultra STABLE.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

boirked — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:33:17 -0000

Are you serious?WM has far better applications than symbian!Go to any developers blog,read what sdk they prefer.I cannot believe people write such absolute nonsense.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:33:40 -0000

Well it's true that UIQ is indeed a variant of S60 but I thought it was pretty apparent that this post was focusing on the most recent S60 3rd OS. Apologies if it wasn't clear. ;)

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

jam — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:15:52 -0000

Andy we're talking about s60 not uiq

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Andy — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:42:02 -0000

I'm looking at this post and I can't believe it. If you aren't familiar with Symbian please don't comment about it. "Today screen" hahaha what a joke. Symbian UIQ 2.1 has it long time ago with a 3rd party application named "Magic Screen" so I see exactly what I want when I'm looking at my p910i screen :)>

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:51:00 -0000

Yeah so unfortunately you can't display your inbox on active standby. :( The rest of the apps mentioned will all work fine for you though!

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Pouya — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:37:13 -0000

Thanks for your response. I am using the N95

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:13:37 -0000

That is another good point Qasim, and that is an area where I'm sure (at least some) S60 devices will shine. Unfortunately I'm probably not the right person to do this comparison as I'm not much of a gamer. I really wouldn't know what games to try and what functionality gamers are looking for. Right now I don't have any games installed on my Touch and my N95 is only sporting a few simple games such as Big 2, Word Craze, etc...

Hopefully Ricky (symbian-guru.com) or Stefan (intomobile.com) will get their hands on the TyTN II that they've been talking about and we can get some perspective from some more savvy gamers.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Qasim — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:35:29 -0000

Another important factor that should be compared is gaming. Companies like Infinite Dreams make all these gorgeous looking games for the Symbian OS, and with the introduction of the new n-gage platform in November on many s60 v3 n-series smartphones, Nokia seems pretty strong on gaming. One of their announced n-gage games even has nintendo wii like motion sensing, using the phone's camera to detect motion.

It'd be cool to see how this compares to wm 6.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:56:50 -0000

Thanks for the comment Pouya. :)

The programs pictured above on Active Standby ordered from left to right are:

Palringo, S60 Browser, Handy Weather, Reboot, Papyrus, GSync, and Jaiku Mobile
As for getting your email do display on Active Standby, this is a function unique to Eseries devices unfortunately. What device are you currently using?

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Pouya — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:43:09 -0000

I was wondering were the programs you have in your active standby screen? and how do you get a gmail inbox icon? thanks.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

RMR — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:13:14 -0000

I would really like to see a S60 compared to a BlackBerry... Over the past several months there have been a plethora of advancements in the OS and Apps available because of the fact that they are becoming more consumer friendly!

Perhaps there might not be as many apps, but stability is definitely not an issue!

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:03:42 -0000

Thanks for the comment Pierre and I do agree to a certain extent. I really like the way that S60 handles connectivity in most cases - it's nice that each app can have its own configured AP. I also like that in some cases you can configure an AP group that will search for available APs in a specific order.

Regarding WM however, there's something to be said for maintaining one connection and having all apps with a data requirement automatically use the active connection. In terms of WiFi, I've been using PhoneWeaver's Today plugin and I love that I can tap the WiFi icon and have the phone drop EDGE and connect to my WLAN with minimal or no additional steps. Then apps make use of the WiFi connection until I disable WiFi (again with just a single tap of PhoneWeaver's WiFi icon).

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Pierre — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:44:57 -0000

After years of Windows Mobile devices (from PPC2002 to WM5, from PDAs to Smartphones), let me add my 2 cents...

First of all, Symbian cant indeed compete with WM in terms of home page. WM's today screen is so much configurable with tons of 3rd party plugins, you can build the today page you want to!

Speaking of PIM, Symbian apps are so poor compared to Pocket Informant or Agenda Fusion! Yes, Papyrus is an alternative of the standard PIM (and also on WM5 for Smartphone devices), but it's not the same... Anyway, I bought it on my N95.

But, there is a domain where Symbian is much better than WM: connectivity. Using WM devices, if you want to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot to surf with Pocket IE, you need to first launch the Wi-Fi manager to connect to the hotspot, then to launch PIE. And after closing PIE, dont forget to deconnect from the hotspot... Connection process is so smooth using Symbian devices!! You launch your app and the proper connectivity just pop-up to confirm connection (or even connect directly), and when you're done, the connection is silently drop off. Superb!!

This connectivity efficency is, for me, far more important than the poor active standby... :-)

Regards,

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:34:56 -0000

Lol you're definitely correct Rita - I'll be covering the phone interface for sure. (and soon) :)

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Rita El Khoury — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:17:19 -0000

Oh and by the way for people considering buying a WM device, wait for Zach to review the phone utility and the stability issues... I'm pretty sure he will because these are the most flagrant differences between these 2 platforms, even more than apps (there are lots of applications for WM, don't worry).
I guess then you'll be able to make your choice mre clearly. For me, I wouldn't put my SIM card in the Qtek 9100 for nothing in the world. I love my Nokia!

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Rita El Khoury — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:02:28 -0000

hey Zach, nice comparison (my friend just got an HTC touch, so I got to play with it a little bit too).
I guess you have noticed what pissed me off the most in my WM vs Symbian post. The Today screen in WM totally blew me away when I got the Qtek, I was so frustrated I didn't have 10% of it's usability on my Nokia.
But i've got something more interesting to say now.
Take a look at SPB's (http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com) Mobile Shell and Pocket Plus.
If you just look at Mobile Shell you will see that it has the same functionality as HTC's home/weather/launcher, except the launcher isn't as configurable. While Pocket Plus adds an extremely configurable launcher and a couple of other goodies like a task manager that "weirdly" reminds of the task manager you have on the extreme upper right.
Let's add that both SPB's programs have been best sellers, you can check it on Handango.
Which brings me to my conclusion:
1 - HTC have seen what was popular and integrated it in their Today (the 3-part home/weather/launcher)
2 - WM have really noticed that the most annoying part of their platform is that the close button doesn't actually close the programs but hides them and the task manager on WM5 takes 5 minutes to access (horrible), so they implemented the same feature as SPB's Pocket Plus.
Proof that they listen to their customers and try to make life easier for them :)
FINAL WORD: I would love to see Symbian implement for free the features of the best-selling apps for their platform... maybe i'm too optimistic.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 09:22:58 -0000

Thanks for the comments Gaston.

I've haven't had much time to play with it so far but I have to say that I'm liking it a lot compared to WM5 and any WM smartphone edition devices I've used. Comparing it to S60 is a completely different story...

I'll be doing some more comparisons over time here, but some basic info after my initial impressions: They're both about equally as stable/buggy - each has issues that can only be resolved with a reboot/powercycle. I'd call the WM UI a bit more attractive but that's 100% due to the fact that it's so open and HTC has done a good job with tweaking it and adding some great functionality. The touch interface is nice and there are lots of advantages to it, but I do start to miss buttons when typing long messages. As such, the Kaiser might be a better choice - but I really wanted to embrace the touch UI in my testing and IMO you can't beat the form of the Touch.

In terms of usability, I'm liking HTC's WM6 UI very much so far -BUT- it should be noted that WM apps are much less "usable" than S60 apps in general. For some reason most WM apps that I've played with so far are almost counterintuitive! They're set up badly and settings are often confusing. I suppose it's related to the programming environment but apps just seem to flow and function MUCH better on S60 devices. I've even been playing with a few apps that make S60 and WM versions to compare them. The difference is often huge and unmistakable...

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Gaston — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:11:14 -0000

Nice comparison of the Standy Screen that the S60 features and WM6 Today screen. I was wondering how your experience with the HTC Touch was? I'm an E61 user who has been toying with the idea of getting a WM6 device (maybe the Kaiser or the S710) and I was wondering if you, as a bonafide S60 guru and user, have any comments on the comparisons of the two platforms.

Love the site by the way. It's truly a great resource for S60 users.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:22:04 -0000

Hey Jackie, thanks for the comment.
There are really only a few main differences between the older N95 and the upcoming US HSDPA version, but they're pretty big ones:
<ul>
<li>US HSDPA (of course)</li>
<li>Internal memory (160MB)</li>
<li>Big RAM upgrade (about 85MB free on reboot - post apps)</li>
<li>Slightly bigger screen (I believe)</li>
<li>No lens cover</li>
<li>Higher capacity battery compatibility</li>
<li>A-GPS</li>
</ul>
The only item above that I can't really comment on is the bigger battery as my proto was delivered with the old battery. There are probably a few things I missed but that should cover the big ones. Let me know if you have any questions or want me to try anything out. :)

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Jackie — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 11:45:58 -0000

Can you do a comparison on the original N95 and the new US version N95? I was really pissed after I bought the original to find out that it doesn't support the US HSDPA. grrrr

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

zach — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:59:58 -0000

Thanks a lot for the comment Tuomas - but keep in mind that this is just the first comparison between these two VERY different OSes. It's true that the Touch's home screen puts Active Standby to shame, but as everyone knows I'm an apps guy. When it comes to apps, S60 is where it's at - PERIOD. :)

I'll have more "vs" posts coming in the near future including (I hope) a few video comparisons of different functions and how they are achieved on each device.

Re: S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen

Tuomas — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 02:04:03 -0000

Nice comparison you've made there. Now I'm even more disappointed that I bought the Nokia E50 a year ago :) The new active standby screen is a nice improvement - since previously there was only a wallpaper - but still Nokia has a lot work to do.

Well seriously, I was nearly ready to pay 50% more (Nokia E50 ~300€ vs. basic WM6-phone ~450€) just to get a better today-screen. Seemed too much back then, but today I'd make a different choice (although the E50 is still a nice solid phone).