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Why Android is Better than Symbian?

First off, I think a lot of it is the user interface. Symbian is painfully outdated. I seriously think that Nokia's software still looks like something from the 90's. Symbian also tends to be a jumbled mess when compared to its competitors. I remember adding my mom to my plan and getting her a Nokia Nuron free. Granted the phone was pretty decent for a freebie, but the menu structure among other things was difficult for me to navigate and I'm a former Nokia owner and all around tech nerd.

Also, Nokia's got a lot pride that needs to be swallowed. They've remained on top in pretty much every cell phone market (aside from the USA) because of solid hardware and a relatively easy to use operating system. Apple hasn't really penetrated all markets due to the fact that the iPhone is quite expensive and there isn't a dumbphone version of it. Blackberry is more of an American business thing, along with Windows Mobile 6.5 and earlier. Then you have other manufacturers with their own operating system software that tends to lose out due to bad hardware. All these things helped keep Nokia at the top until Android came out.

Android's big claim to fame is that it goes anywhere, does anything, runs on everything, and is extremely easy to mod, both mechanically and visually. Android is essentially the wet dream of all Linux users who wanted their OS to hit big. The amazing level of customization, function, and cost effectiveness (it is free after all) is why Android is beginning to pummel Nokia. The fact that cell phone carriers can now offer smartphones for free is making people who wouldn't ordinarily look that way become interested.

Nokia doesn't want to, as they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Although I think that Nokia using Android is a good possibility. I doubt that they are so prided that they're willing to let all of their market share slip away just because they don't want to include Android on their hardware. Nokia's key advantage is that they are both the hardware and software makers for their phones. While their are likely some licensing fees to use Google's own personal suite of applications, Android's cost to hardware makers and carriers is virtually nothing. Nokia would still be making money on the hardware. I think Nokia will come around eventually and may even see a rise in popularity in the USA which has been the one market they can't penetrate.

Also, the vets are probably asleep since a great deal of Android users come from the USA and it anywhere from 1 am to 5 am here right now. One final thing, the mods will probably move this to the lounge which is a more suitable place for it.
 
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Fair enough to elaborate the diff. Thanks man. I checked your blog. If its intended to attract some bucks, I recommend using some decent custom theme. Just a thought!

Meh, I'm on the fence about jumping into advertising on it for money. I only have two followers which are friends that I hang out with. Don't think it would be worth it. Plus, I kinda feel like a whore for some reason with all the advertising I have to see on my phone and computer.
 
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Meh, I'm on the fence about jumping into advertising on it for money. I only have two followers which are friends that I hang out with. Don't think it would be worth it. Plus, I kinda feel like a whore for some reason with all the advertising I have to see on my phone and computer.
LOLZ.. Would be hard to get accepted for adsense at this moment, so you r far from the fence unless you already have adsense through some other means.
 
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android is not only better then symbian but it is also better then google operating system.

because android operating system is fast, there are more then 100,000 apps in the android apps market

Apps are a bit of a misnomer. Quantity does not make up for quality. I don't judge Android's strength on its apps just because I can run Angry Birds (though it is a fun game to play). For every good app that you want to keep or use consistently, you have to deal with hundreds that are just terrible. The same goes for Apple's App Store.

No, I judge Android on the points I mentioned above because anyone can have an app store, but if the OS isn't worthy of apps, you aren't going to have any. Just look at Blackberry's app store or Nokia's Ovi Store compared to Apple and Google. Both of those operating systems are losing market share because consumers want more than they can give.
 
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I worked with symbian for 3 years and I defended the Nokia until discover android.
Some reasons to change to android.

1) full integration with Gmail , Google calendar, and gdocs ( I'm using a grocery program to maintain for example my notepad )
2) Google maps 5 with vector trending and cache plus latitude location
3 ) much more free games and utilities and better paid one
4) you don't need iTunes or Ovid to sync your data . You do this direct to Google and for example picasa.
5) symbian run over DLL and exe. Android runs with Linux platform or Unix.
6) the first dual core cellulars have android.
7 ) take a look Motorola atrix videos and you will undestand.
 
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I never used Android. SO a pretty basic question. What makes android better than Symbian [according to you]
Better is always subjective, regardless of the topic. Give us your list of needs/wants/priorities and we can then tell you how Android might be better for you. It's certainly possible that it might not be. One size does not fit all with smartphones (and many other things in life).
 
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Better is always subjective, regardless of the topic. Give us your list of needs/wants/priorities and we can then tell you how Android might be better for you. It's certainly possible that it might not be. One size does not fit all with smartphones (and many other things in life).

Agreed. Better is always subjective. Symbian has been getting killed in the US market mainly because it has no relationships with hardware manufacturers or carriers here. No one pushes Symbian phones.
 
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I liked my S60v5 phone. I could do one thing that so far I haven't seen Android do, and that was run Palm programs thru Styletap. I had no troubles setting up the phone and using it. I don't sync mail or anything like that, so I don't care.
What drove me away from Nokia was Ovi. I preferred PC Suite. I could stop portions of that from running by renaming the EXE file. Ovi decided to use DLL instead. You had to run Ovi Suite before you could set preferences, so it shoved a lot of files where I didn't want them, and synced everything on the phone. Ovi also stuck an extension into Firefox. It was not enabled, however the fact that it was done without permission or knowledge infuriated me.
Lack of certain programs also bothered me. Most of the stuff was games, themes, wallpaper, etc. The one good thing is that you could do a backdoor install of something that Nokia thought you shouldn't have. (I did Skype)

Also, I was able to get rid of most of the social apps on the Nokia without having to root the phone. What I couldn't get rid of were mostly links of some kind. You had to activate them and the folders were empty. I made another folder and shoved those apps in it.

I'm not having too many problems setting up Android. However, I don't really like that it wants/uses the cloud to sync. I want the stuff on my own computer. Plus too many programs depend on a connection. I go places where I don't have one. So I need to store stuff on the card but can't since there is no provision for the program to do it.
I use the phone as a PDA, and am trying to get all my nature guidebooks and astronomy charts on it. I can store the books, but not the charts, so far. I want to carry only one device.:D

No one phone is perfect. My ideal phone would be a phone added to my old Sony Clie. Although I don't think I'd trust Sony with anything about now.

And I like GSM, and will stay with TMobile.
 
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Cloud is what Android is all about. Removing it, you remove the reason why Google pushes it.

If you like an Android doing PC sync and backing things up on PCs, that's not hard at all. Get a Samsung. Samsung Kies is one neat looking PC sync and data backup software, and it will do software upgrades. The other choice is Sony Ericsson. It also has PC Suite that syncs and backs up their Android phones. I have not tried LG but I guess they should have too.

Store stuff on the micro SD. Android automatically does that to files and photos. You don't have to tell it. Its default.

An Android can operate without a mobile 3G internet connection. You can use wifi to back up to your Cloud. There is no loss in doing that. If your Android gets lost, you get a new Android, login to your Google account on Wifi, and you get all your contacts back. You're ready to move on immediately.

I've seen too many people, that are totally dumbfounded when they lost their phone. People don't diligently backup to their PCs, when a phone is lost, they are completely at lost what to do.
 
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Go check a coverage map in central Utah for TM. There ain't much.
It's got dark skies and fantastic scenery.
No wifi unless you are in a motel, bar, etc, and no bars on the phone. I've been in places on US191 that had only one bar, and if you get out of site of a tower, there's nothing. And if you are roaming, phone calls only.
Not all of us like to stay in towns and on the beaten path all the time.
 
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Even before a trip, you can just use the wifi in your home to backup. The backup is all done automatically. You restore to the state of your contacts to the last time you have an internet connection.

Any freaking wifi is enough. Even in a motel or bar. Sync your contact data and GMail to the Google Cloud will take only seconds once a wifi connection is made, and its all done automatically. That is all that will take.

Please don't make excuses. The fact that you can post here means you can get internet and you can Cloud sync.

And like I said, PC sync can be done on Android. Each brand has their own PC sync software, For HTC for example, its called HTC Sync. You save on both PC and Cloud. We know enough laptops can be stolen, and hard drives can crash.
 
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You are missing the point. If there are no connections, I can't use Google sky!
I need to store charts to have them available and there is no way to do that. If you want no light pollution, you go to dark sky sites. If you are out of line of site of a tower, you have no service.
Yes, I have no trouble where I have service.
Am I required to do my vacations where I have service only?
 
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I used a symbian phone for 3 years. And in Pakistan the Symbian phones are still the first preference. But Android just popped up in the world comibing AMOLED display and prevailed on everything. Even Apple is struggling hard to counter this surge :rolleyes:
I never used Android. SO a pretty basic question. What makes android better than Symbian [according to you]

I've used Symbian for 7 months before switching to an Android phone (HTC Desire Z). The reason I switched so soon was more due to the fact that the N97 is a very bad, buggy phone as a whole than Symbian. I'll restrict my comments to comparing Symbian to Android only (and not about specifically the N97).

First of all, the Android UI makes it easier for me to access the things I need more easily. The 7 home screens allow easy access to the items I use frequently, very easily. On the HTC, there are a number of widgets that already display the relavent information from the apps that I use often without having to open the app. The widgets I use also can display a lot of information. Some widgets are small and some take up the whole home screen. Depending on how much information you need different widgets for different apps are of different sizes. The weather widget I use only takes up 1/8 the screen where as Friend Stream (for Facebook updates) and Twitter widgets take up the whole screen.

In comparison, Symbian on the phone I use has only one home screen. (The latest version, Symbian^3, has 3 home screens.) The widgets are also rather limited to displaying only three lines of information and can only take 1/6 of the screen. The FB widget and Gravity (for Twitter feeds) need to be bigger than this for them to be useful for me.

It is easier to add a shortcut on Android. All you do is long tap and then select the short cut you want. You can also move the short cut anywhere on the existing home screen or to another very easily. On Symbian, you need to first create a short cut widget (which can hold 4 short cuts), then edit the widget and then select which of the 4 short cuts in the widget and then select the app. If you want to move the short cut one space to the left, you have to edit the shortcut widget, remove the short cut from the current spot, select the spot where you want the short cut to go, then select the app for the short cut.

In general, I find that there are many things where with Symbian you have to drill down multiple submenus or subfolders to get what you want. Although with Android, you may have to drill down, I find you don't need to drill down as many levels. Android seems to encourage a flatter structure in its UI. This may mean that things may not be so organised into groups of folders and subfolders, but more often than not, it makes searching for things you don't use often easier. With Symbian, if you want to find something that you don't use often, it involves searching in more folders and subfolders/menus.

The one big thing for me is that the Android browser is much, much better than the Symbian browser. I find I had difficulty opening some web sites on the Symbian browser. The Android browser seems to be able to open almost any web site I would visit on my PC. You can get around the Symbian browser problems by installing a different browser. However, Symbian does not seem to let you change default browsers for all applications. I can change the default browser in Symbian for email links, but I cannot do the same for Gravity (my Twitter app) or Facebook. I did use two alternate browsers on my Symbian phone, but I got tired of using 3 different browsers depending on what I need to do. I did install a second browser (Opera Mini) on my Android phone, but I only use the Android browser now. When I upgraded from my N97, I considered the E7, but the browser was one of the main reasons I decided to go with the Desire Z.

Android has its Marketplace app that allows you to browse through and select apps to install. Symbian has the Ovi app store. I find that the Android Marketplace to be easier to use. It is just faster when scrolling through the list of apps. The Ovi Store is painfully slow in comparison.

The new version Symbian has improvements over the version I used on the N97. From what I've seen of the new Symbian, Android is still a better experience overall.
 
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Meh, I'm on the fence about jumping into advertising on it for money. I only have two followers which are friends that I hang out with. Don't think it would be worth it. Plus, I kinda feel like a whore for some reason with all the advertising I have to see on my phone and computer.
I looked thru your blog. I think you have some interesting contribtions to make (but I would stay out of politics). The problem I have is the black background. I had to copy the articles into a Word document to be able to read them.
 
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You are missing the point. If there are no connections, I can't use Google sky!
I need to store charts to have them available and there is no way to do that. If you want no light pollution, you go to dark sky sites. If you are out of line of site of a tower, you have no service.
Yes, I have no trouble where I have service.
Am I required to do my vacations where I have service only?

So are you saying Android doesn't have an app that can store and read astronomy charts, where symbian does? What does that have to with syncing with the cloud? The only thing you're syncing with the cloud are emails, contacts and calendar and you said you don't do that much of that anyways.

An android phone will function like a pda without cell service. You can connect your phone to a computer, save files, backup files just like a pda. The only thing you don't have access to is gmail.

I don't know much about astronmy or what you want to do with the charts, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is app in market that will allow you to read those charts store on your SD card. You just gotta look for it.
 
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