Symbian vs Windows mobile

When you are looking for more functionality than the average device offers, you have the choice from a broad range of smartphones and PDAs. Both types of devices not only differ physically but also as far as operation system is concerned. The better you know which functions you are going to use on a frequent base, the easier it is to make your choice.

Symbian OS:

• [+] Symbian OS is the market leader with large installed based devices. It has been growing very fast too.
• [+] More and more third party applications are developed for Symbian OS. Symbian claims there are already more than 4400 applications for Symbian OS.
• [+] From the technical point of view, Symbian OS, which is originally from EPOC, was developed from the very beginning as the operating system for mobile devices. It is designed for devices with limited processor power, low memory, always on, limited battery power and most importantly always connected.
• [-] Symbian dominates the market is mostly because of Nokia. What is going to happen if Nokia switch to another operating system? We have seen Nokia just released Linux device, Nokia 770.
• [-] The learning curve of Symbian OS is very steep. There are a lot of “strange” concepts in Symbian OS from developer’s point of view, such as active objects and cleanup stack. It might affect the growing number of third party applications.

Windows Mobile:

• [+] No single company dominates Windows Mobile devices, unlike Symbian OS.
• [+] The users, who are familiar with Windows 2000/XP, will feel “at home” when using Windows phones. It is one big advantage.
• [+] We can expect to see third party applications will grow very fast. Windows Mobile has .NET Compact Framework, which make porting applications from PC is very easy.
• [+] Since it is a Microsoft product, it integrates with other Microsoft products very well, for example Office, Outlook and Exchange.
• [-] Windows Mobile is originally an operating system for PC. Although most of Windows Mobile codes are written from scratch, some mobile features are one step behind Symbian OS, for example telephony stack used for voice calling. However, Bill Gates recently said the telephony stack should be better in Windows Mobile 5.0. Another example, the first 3G Symbian OS phone was released about 3 years ago in Japan, while the first 3G Windows Mobile phone was released just last month.