The NFC-equipped Nokia C7 is one of the current range of Nokia phones being lined up for a fresh lick of smartphone paint in the form of the Symbian Belle update. Let's check out what to expect when it arrives.
The Nokia C7 isn't quite in the same high-end league as the business class Nokia E7 or the ever-popular Nokia N8 camera superstar, but that doesn't mean it's lacking in appeal.
It caters for a slightly more budget and size-conscious smartphone user than its more premium brethren, and also boast a trump card that neither can match: built-in NFC support.
It's a feature Nokia C7 users are only now getting to grips with, as it was only activated with the arrival of the Symbian Anna update recently. But with Nokia clearly having embraced NFC as a central part of Symbian's future, it puts the Nokia C7 in a unique place among the handsets being lined up to receive Symbian Belle via software update in the months to come.
So let's take a quick run-through of the changes that are coming:
Drop-down status bar: notification icons are displayed in a bar along the top of the screen in Symbian Belle, which isn't worlds apart from he approach used in Symbian Anna. But there's a difference – in Symbian Belle you can drag the menu downwards to get all the details you need directly on your homescreen.
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| All new pull down menu |
More homescreens: and speaking of homescreens, you've got more of them to play with too – as many as six, should you choose to have that many. For a device as focused on social interaction as the Nokia C7, it's a great way to group your favourite services together so you don't have to go looking for them.
Free-form widgets: another significant change is the arrival of free-form resizeable widgets. This means you don't just have a single size and style available for each homescreen widget, as is the case with Symbian Anna. Instead you can choose from a number of different sizes, and arrange them on your homescreens however you like.
NFC: there's no question that NFC is a big part of what's good about Symbian Belle, and uniquely among the crop of Symbian Anna handsets looking forward to a software update, the Nokia C7 has the hardware capabilities to support it. In theory, then, this should allow the Nokia C7 to use services such as Tap to Share and Tap to Pair, and get the most of Symbian Belle's NFC smarts.
Nokia C7 users: does Symbian Belle give your handset fresh appeal going forward, and are you looking forward to the upgrade? Let us know in the Comments.
