If there’s one thing consumers hate more than overpaying for goods and services, it’s buying something that quickly becomes obsolete. These days you need to do a lot of research before signing a 2 year contract and taking home a new smartphone. Is it running the latest version of Android/Symbian, will it get updates, how many apps are available, etc.? Owners of Symbian S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 and Symbian S60 5th Edition (which some people also call Symbian^1) have had their devices for several years now, and while Nokia has issued a few firmware updates to address bugs, they haven’t really added any new features. That’s no longer the case according to a recent post on Nokia Conversations that says the Nokia E72, E52, E5, C5-00, 6700 Slide, C6-00, C5-03, 5230, 5235, 5250, X6, N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic and 5530 XpressMusic are due to get a new software update that will bring the built in web browser up to the same version that’s bundled with Symbian Anna devices, add support for emoticons, and an updated version of Nokia Maps that offers public transportation routing, travel recommendations, and the ability to checkin with your favorite location based web services.
There’s nothing bad we can say about this piece of news. For people who already have those devices listed above, they should be thrilled, but if you’re in the market for a new mobile phone you need to make sure it’s going to get support. It’s why many of the staff at IntoMobile carry either an Apple iPhone or Google Nexus device, because we know we’ll always have the latest up to date software running on our handsets. Apple’s due to release iOS 5 later this year, along with a new iPhone, and there’s also rumors of an ultra powerful “Nexus Prime” Android smartphone coming in time for Christmas. We say wait for those if you’ve got an itch to upgrade.