I have been using the Nokia 5800 ExpressMusic for close to two years now. This is one device that I have used to near destruction. It is packed full of really useful applications that I use on a day-to-day basis. Some of these applications I would not want to do without. It is the primary reason I have tenaciously hung on to Symbian (s60V5) for so long.

While I could almost keep using this particular phone for eternity (it meets my mobile needs), it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to get the kind of functionality that I crave from the device.

True; I have as divergent an array of functional applications as a man could wish for on Symbian, but – and this is the big but – the limited onboard memory of the Nokia 5800 is finally beginning to cramp my style.

I have always embraced the principle of having as few background tasks as possible running. This is to ensure minimal battery consumption, enhance system stability and make judicious use of my lean memory.

However, I am beginning to hit a brick wall.

I am unable to make use of some applications (e.g. Opera Mobile and SPB Mobile Shell) without having to shut down ALL other running apps! The problem here is that there some apps I am unwilling to EVER shut down!

These apps run in the background and are essential for me. As such, they must remain in memory at ALL times. I list them below:

1. SPB WireLess Monitor – This app monitors data traffic usage other things). It warns me when I hit a predetermined (by me) data consumption level.
2. JBak TaskManager – Manages processes and task switching on the phone (among other things)
3. SmartLight – perpetually keeps the screen display ‘on’ – except when on the the ‘Home Screen’. Great while reading an ebook, or browsing the web.
4. SBSH PocketLock – Has rendered the physical screenlock switch superfluous and redundant.
5. Handy BlackList – allows me to keep unwanted calls / callers off my phone
6. Total ReCall – automatically record conversations on the phone
7. Smartbian AutoHangUp – automatically disconnect a call after a specified duration
8. Virtual KeyBoard – allows you run most apps designed for ‘physical keypadded’ devices on your touchScreen
9. Magic Message Manager – automatically categorizes smss into defined folders (among other things) – as they arrive / as they are sent.
10. Youlu Address Book – an awesome contacts management (among other things)
11. Swype.

I have mentioned about ten apps up there – apps that have to remain perpetually in memory to be useful.

There are others I would love to have running (Handy alarm, Handy Profile, PlanTask, Emoze, Nimbuzz, WhatsApp, SmartSettings), but as can be seen, this will quickly get the phone hitting its threshold on memory!

Thus, getting the best out of this ‘memory-starved device’ entails perpetually having to keep exiting and restarting applications to free memory.

It would therefore seem that the amount of memory available after booting up a device is critical (where swapping-to-disk as you have on PCs is not as refined).

When I eventually dump this Nokia 5800, the volume of available memory will be the first feature I will look for).

Will I jump to another platform? Not likely! I am not willing to ‘gamble’ on any platform that has ‘immature’ / pseudo-multitasking abilities. iOS and Android come to mind.

I will, of course, stick to Symbian devices until Symbian is killed, dies, or the other immature OSes ‘grow up’ on more efficient resource management.

Apple has announced iPhone 4.0. Highlights of this latest version include the following:

1. Multitasking
2. Folders in the iPhone menu to organise applications
3. Improved Enterprise support: Data protection, multi-Exchange accounts, Exchange Server 2010, SSL VPN support, wireless app distribution, and mobile device management
4. iBooks
5. Game Center
6. iAd mobile advertising platform
7. Bluetooth keyboard support
8. 5x digital zoom
9. Homescreen wallpaper

Apple says that there are a hundred new features in all.

Multi-tasking as implemented on the iPhone 4.0 OS is not quite proper multi-tasking, but its at least something. When the user makes a move from one app to another, the OS saves the current app’s state before taking hold of the other one. The previous apps do not run in the background.

Good idea for battery-saving, given the iPhone’s legendary battery weakness.

iPhone 3G and older users won’t be able to multitask due to hardware restraints, so if you’ve not got iPhone 3GS, you are out of luck. Hurry; upgrade your device. Or simply wait for the next iPhone device.

iPhone OS 4.0 looks good and is being expected to be available for devices later in the year.

It is good to appreciate Microsoft and the windows phone 7 seeming anomalous marketing. It’s no one’s secret that windows mobile phones have been doing badly in sales as of recent. With the advent of the iphone and android in the mobile phone world, the fortunes of the windows mobile have been dwindling even further.

To understand Microsoft’s policy of appraising itself competitively against these behemoth “foes” you need to appreciate the diametrically opposing world of the Google Android Smartphone and the Apple iphone. One is closed and the other is open source. One has defined offering and quality assured products throughout the retail units of their mobile devices while the other have a powerful OS but ubiquitous mobile products.

Apple feels that users should have the same user interface on their device. This OS can be thus used across similar devices as part of a large ecosystem of Apple products. On the other hand, Android provides a solid open-source approach to their powerful Smartphone line-up, and many manufacturers are allowed to alter them and use them at their will.

You see in some instance, Samsung, HTC and even Acer, adding their own UI on top of the Android OS. So, when you buy an android product, you cannot predict to 100% accuracy what you get in terms of functionality or user interface. A Samsung Android phone may be different in operability from a Samsung or Motorola’s Android device. Even an android application that runs well in a HTC phone for instance may fail to launch on a Motorola Android phone. Perhaps Microsoft wants to avoid this!

Now, Microsoft wants to regulate and strictly enforce a minimum standard for their windows phone 7. They want to use the model depicted above for the Apple iphone into their Windows Phone 7 series. They want to have a closed ecosystem complete with even an apps store known as the windows phone 7 market place, where you can buy monitored apps, analogous to the Apple apps store format.

They want a situation in which if you buy a windows phone from Samsung in Lagos, Nigeria and buy another windows phone from HTC in the UK, You will have the same user experience and you can predict the UI, functionality and similar apps would run in both phones impeccably.

Merit
One of the problems facing the windows mobile is the same that may lurk out at the Android platform later on. This is an inherent problem in open source OS, which is a lack of standardization. And possibly, universality. With this new approach by Microsoft, they intend to bring about uniformity in their products and perhaps they will ensure a quality assurance too.

When you buy a windows mobile phone you are sure of the minimum RAM (256 MB), in built Memory (of at least 8GB), No removeable memory card, One of the three hard ware requirements and possibly upgradeable OS via later firmwares. There is also a quality regulated application store, where apps from third party manufacturers are scrutinized and approved ala Apple apps store format. Microsoft even promises a more open approach to its apps store.

This system also serves their enterprise partners well. There is nothing better than consistency in their Business enterprise users. Their core business enterprise users will have a choice of different manufacturers and third party applications with the assurance that they will get a single OS, the same UI, and apps interoperability, no matter the source of the Windows Phone 7 series.

Shortcomings
This attempt by Microsoft to revamp its OS is not without criticism albeit forthrightly. For one, it is not all about updating and repositioning, but taking into account the preferences of their users and customers.

This new policy has its controversies because Microsoft in their zeal to bring about their new OS, have dived headlong into it, and have ignored some of the mistakes of their arch rival, Apple. For the sake of simplicity this will be enumerated below:

1. No multi-tasking at launch. Microsoft does not want to include multi tasking ab initio in the WMP 7 so as to emulate this function of the iphone and for simplicity. Whether it is to improve battery life or just for a simple interface, no official reasons were given in the MIX event. Not long ago, the Apple iphone was criticized for lack of multi-tasking and from the intensity of this it was clear that users love this feature. Why Microsoft should ignore such as an astounding feature seems difficult to appreciate.

2. No removeable memory card. This is self explanatory.

3. No copy and paste; even the iphone corrected this shortcoming in their OS 3.0. update.

4. No flash in browser; The lack of flash baffles me. In fact they were able to put silverlight (Microsoft version of Flash) in the OS and UI but exclude it in the most important area that mattered which was the mobile internet browser.

5. Tightly regulated Apps store; this may serve as a strength as well as weakness. The Apple apps store has been criticized for its lack of openness. Let us see if that would not be the case with WMP 7 marketplace.

6. The closed environment or ecosystem; There are many people who love the Apple closed system. Others prefer openness and carrier/ manufacturers configurability of an existing OS. That is why the likes of IG (with due respect) will prefer to jailbreak their iphone to get an increased user-configurability. But whatever model you choose, the most important thing a user may prefer may be quality assurance and similar User interface and ease of use in all the Operating systems of one product.

You do not have to start learning again and mastering the User interface of an android phone or a windows mobile phone each time you change a Manufacturer. I, myself prefer a closed but quality assured user interface. Like the PC Windows 7 for instance. It is closed for instance, yet accepts so many third party software/applications.

Whether you buy windows 7 from Dell or Acer or HP, you know what you’ve bought. It has a single OS and UI in all and similar software will run similarly in all three manufacturers. Perhaps that is what Microsoft is after. But then, they should not starve the OS of features!

Conclusion
New devices running WMP 7 would not be out until the “Holidays”. Perhaps it is too early to tell if Microsoft has a winner in its hands. But suffice to say that their policy has merits and demerits. Microsoft has created an easy to use platform, and also removed the lackluster UI of windows mobile. They want to attempt to create a successful mobile model in line with their PC OS model.

The WMP OS is simple enough and allows developers to make good thirdparty applications. The iPhone was criticized before but they have gradually improved their features and are still improving and selling in droves. Perhaps Microsoft will tow the same line if it has a compelling and fluid UI like the iphone.

The taste of the pudding is in the eating, and perhaps we should just wait and see how all this turn out. What will surely help Microsoft will be further improvement of features with subsequent firmware or OS update. If their policy is well thought out, and if they offer accompanying compatible customer support, we just might have a winner in our hands.

WMExperts have published news items confirming the following about WindowsPhone 7 Series:

• 3rd party apps cannot run in the background; only apps from Microsoft can
• Sideloading: the only way for consumers to get apps on Wp7S is to get them through marketplace
• No copy-and-paste
• Silverlight not available in Internet Explorer mobile, though Silverlight is built into Wp7S itself

It is looking like Wp7S is launching as what the first generation iPhone was. How smart is that?

It is almost unbelievable that Microsoft would do something like this. Would it really hurt them to give us the fancy user interface plus multi-tasking plus side-loading plus copy-and-paste?

Was it really that hard to implement these features that they had implemented for years in their existing mobile OS? Sounds like a step forward and three steps backwards to us. But, what do we know?

This strategy may work for Microsoft in terms of overall sales (it worked for the iPhone), but then Windowsphone will lose the patronage of mobile “power users”.

Read the full news items:

1. Wp7S Apps: No Sideloading, (virtually) no background multitasking
2. No copy-and-paste for Windows Phone 7 Series

What is the problem with Nokia and RAM? What wizard has bewitched the engineers over there such that they are doomed to eternally not give enough RAM to their smartphones? Okay, they do give some of them adequate RAM, but again and again, Nokia has churned out smartphones that multi-task only in theory.

This unforgivable sin was committed with the N97 – it was/is shocking that a flagship model such as the N97 has only 46MB RAM left running right after boot-up.

The 5800 has 53MB. The 5530 has the same amount. Now, both the 5230 and X6 come with a paltry 50MB. Here is an excerpt from Ewan Spence’s review of the X6 over at All About Symbian:

Which means that I have to wonder why Nokia have let the X6 out of Finland in the state that it’s in – it’s almost unforgivable. The amount of free RAM after booting the phone (less than 45MB, with a full-loaded Music player then grabbing 20MB of this for itself) is even less than on the N97, so applications shut down as others are opened, screen changes and animations are jerky and slow to activate… but that’s not the worst part. The Music Player is buggy, slow and (both Steve and I are pretty sure that) there is a memory leak in this key application for the phone.

Was nobody testing this? Did they never think to try playing music in the background while browsing some photos? Or going online with the web browser at the same time as listening to some Steeleye Span? It’s embarrassing for me to be afraid to run anything else on the X6 while listening to music because it might crash and require a power cycle to get working again.

To think that Nokia has repeated this blunder several times over the years and they are still rolling out smartphones with unbelievably low levels of RAM is just… insane.

It is almost as if no-one tests some of these things in real life situations before they are pushed out.

As far back as May last year, Yomi addressed this in his article, What Nokia Needs to Fix – Right Away!, mentioning both the 5800 and another flagship, the N96. We will not even attempt to begin to gripe about the other issues that were raised in that article. Nokia simply seems unconcerned about the majority of them.

Why is Nokia not able to fix this and other issues with their smartphones once and for all? Can anyone explain? Other manufacturers who produce smartphones on the same Symbian platform actually manage to be consistent in equipping their smartphones with copious amounts of RAM.

Who can help us out with why Nokia is so inconsistent with this?

This is not news to those of us who objectively assess phones. The iPhone is revolutionary in many ways, but if you need a phone you can actually work on, stay away!!

Engadget Editor, Joshua Topolsky, was recently away from the office and tried to get some work done on his iPhone 3GS, but ended up with a very frustrating experience.

His complaints include:

1. lack of multi-tasking
2. unreliability of on-screen keyboard for chatting
3. intrusive notification system for SMS, calendar events, and push IM messages

Joshua says:

Basic functionality, like calling people, email, and certainly document editing still feel inelegant and clunky due to the onscreen keyboard, and the lack of multitasking makes moving around through those typically important tasks difficult to say the least. The experience on an Android device, S60, the Pre, a BlackBerry, or even Windows Mobile just makes more sense. Let me say that again: those experiences make more sense. Now I’m not saying the execution of those experiences is better across platforms, but the philosophy of letting users multitask is more natural to us. The iPhone doesn’t even have a method for switching between recently used or favorite applications.

We don’t work like this on our computers — why does Apple think we want to work like this on our phones?

These issues are not just being discovered. They are established deal-breakers for people who work on the go (on their mobiles). They are the reasons an iPhone is a No-no for me. The iPhone is a sleek, friendly device if you are into media and do not necesarrilly need to work on your phone. The user interface is lovely. But try to work, and…

I know that ‘Dayo has been talking of buying an iPhone recently. Unless Apple delivers a multi-tasking, QWERTY keyboard version of the iPhone, something tells me that he is more likely to regret going that route. I know his work schedule! But then, I believe in miracles.

Read Joshua’s full account: Taking the iPhone 3GS off the job market.

Traditionally, smartphones have always had an edge over and above feature phones (non-smartphones). Smartphone users were the cream-of-the-crop, so to speak.

You see, on smartphones, you had the best of features. You had multi-tasking – that rare ability to run several appliccations at the same time and simply switch from one to another. And of course, with smartphones, you had the ability to install 3rd party applications. All these literally set smartphones aside from other phones and made them mini PCs.

But over the last 2 to 3 years, the line between smartphones and feature phones have continually been erased, so much so that what is left in some cases is a very thin – almost indiscernable – line.

There are a number of feature phones from various manufacturers that now come with multi-tasking and high-end features. All that separates some of these outstanding feature phones from smartphones is their inability to install 3rd party applications. Of course, there’s java (J2ME) to bridge even this last gap a little.

Look at the iPhone, for example. Though marketed as a smartphone, this beautiful device did not qualify on at least two fronts when first introduced:

1. it lacked multi-tasking
2. it lacked an openeness to 3rd party applications

Yet, it was successfully passed off as a smartphone.

Several feature phones from Nokia, LG, Samsung and others already pack the same features and capabilities as smartphones, bar installation of 3rd party apps and multi-tasking. LG in particular is breaking down the barrier even better than Nokia and Samsung by introducing multi-tasking into a good range of their feature phones.

Is there really any serious difference between the overall capabilities of feature phones and smartphones anymore?

I purchased a top-of-the-range smartphone late last year, the Nokia E90 communicator, but found that there was very little 3rd party applications that I needed to run on it. The device came with most of those features I needed built-in.

Now compare that with several high-specified feature phones. Those too come with many of my requirements built-in, and where necesarry there are often a number of java applications available to fill in the gap.

Would I be wrong to argue that a non-smartphone with a similar feature-set as my E90 would have been able to meet my needs just as well?

What do you think? Is this the beginning of the war between smartphones and feature phones? Do you absolutely need a smartphone now, looking back at growing similarities between smartphones and non-smartphones?