Nokia is working on many projects; some of them prove to be successful, while others simply fail with no chance to survive. S40 operating system was at the bottom for a while. But those who hurried to bury the platform should basically renounce as My Nokia Blog has shown two devices running this OS and sporting touchscreens. The first...

eBuddy has reached the 20 million downloads milestone in Ovi Store. This means we’re dealing with one of the most popular applications on the market. This is why Nokia decided to strengthen their cooperation and gave the app en extra push, making eBuddy the “preferred messaging partner.”

eBuddy will be released for all Nokia handsets regardless of the platform they run on, S40, S60, MeeGo and Windows Phone 7.

I guess this is a right decision, because if the app has been downloaded more than 150 million times, it means one thing — users like it. So why not give it a chance to become an official partner? On this occasion Nokia’s Reno Marioni said:

“eBuddy’s success and experience in the mobile messaging field have made this partnership a natural step for Nokia. We are excited about the introduction of eBuddy XMS to Nokia platforms and look forward to having Nokia users enjoy the reliable and rich messaging experience that eBuddy XMS provides.”

Moreover, due to this cooperation Nokia won’t have to consider how to improve its native messaging app, and will focus its attention on  more important features. On the other hand, eBuddy developers will improve their product, because it’s not easy to be one of the main apps on Nokia’s phones. So we must state that the cooperation between Nokia and eBuddy is in favor of both companies.

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Yesterday Nokia executive Colin Giles said that they were planning to launch their upcoming Windows Phone-powered devices in China. The handsets will run on China Mobile’s 3G network using the TD-SCDMA standard. Well, this is the official part, but let’s see whether it is beneficial for Nokia.

Nokia is very popular in China currently. In this regard, it has a sense to launch new phones in a location where you are established completely. And as many analysts say, Nokia will catch up to Apple and Google by this step. However, I am surprised, and honestly, I don’t think Nokia will release its Windows Phone smartphones in China because:

1. It has “cleared” the U.S. market from Symbian and S40 handsets
2. It doesn’t launch the Nokia N9 in the U.S. and in most European countries, though the phone has become very popular recently
3. Keeping the first position in China won’t give anything to the company, because the Asian market can’t be compared with the U.S. and European markets at all
4. Nokia dominates in Asia, and there is no sense to switch to a new platform and new strategy if there are no aims to “conquer new lands.”

I don’t think Nokia has passed a long way and made such difficult decisions (I mean choosing between Android and Windows Phone) to launch its handsets in China. Of course, its smartphones running WP will be shipped to China, too, but it doesn’t mean Nokia’s target is Asia, especially China.

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Today Nokia Inc. President Chris Weber, head of operations in the U.S., said the company will pull out all Symbian and S40-powered smartphones from the U.S. It is explained by the fact they will completely switch to Windows Phone OS and all their efforts will be directed to conquering the U.S. market with WP.

Though Nokia’s not doing so bad in Europe, it is not enough for the manufacturer, because it has been on the top of glory and felt the taste of victory. Anyway, many can ask why Nokia wants to carry out all handsets running Symbian and S40, and it is clear, because, according to a widespread opinion, these devices wouldn’t prevent Nokia’s upcoming handsets from winning users’ hearts (if they are worth it). But Nokia has got another viewpoint in this regard and as Weber said:

“When we launch Windows Phones we will essentially be out of the Symbian business, the S40 business, etc. It will be Windows Phone and the accessories around that. The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn’t matter what we do (elsewhere).”

I guess this is a good strategy, because Nokia has tried to get some market share in the U.S. and failed — AT&T offers only one Nokia smartphone, T-Mobile has two devices, and I even don’t know if there is any other Nokia handset available in the U.S. This is one of the biggest campaigns in the history of mobile world, and if Nokia succeeds, we can say it will win in the smartphone battle.

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I guess you have never heard about the Nokia C3-01.5. Neither have I. But the pics of this mysterious unannounced phone have leaked, and we have a chance to have a look at them. Here they are:

As you can see, the Nokia C3-01.5 looks exactly like the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type from the outside, but is completely different inside. It has a 1GHz processor and 512MB RAM and runs S40 (Why does an S40 phone need such a powerful processor and that amount of RAM? Maybe Nokia knows it…).

Not so long ago we heard rumors that Nokia was going to launch a new line of S40 phones and some of them were going to have 1GHz processors, 512MB RAM, a ClearBlack capacitive display and a hardware QWERTY keyboard. The Nokia C3-01.5 seems to meet this description (not sure about the display and the QWERTY keyboard though), so it’s probably from the same lineup.

Some leaked documents say that Nokia is now working on the C2-01.5 (RM722), the C3-01.5 (RM-702), the X2-01/X2-03 (RM-709), the X3-02.5 (RM775 or RM-776) and the X2-01.1(RM-717). I guess they will also be included in the same lineup. Most likely, they’ll be the upgraded versions of older phones just like the Nokia C3-01.5 is the upgraded version of the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type.

I think at least some of these phones can be introduced during the Nokia World in September… Does anyone agree?

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It seems like Nokia is going to release a Symbian 40 (S40) feature phone with a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM. According to a recent tweet from Fernando Freytes, Nokia’s Manager of Marketing in Argentina, the phone will also have a ClearBlack touchscreen display.

Here is the actual tweet. Unfortunately, it’s in Spanish, but maybe some of you can understand it. By the way, this tweet was later removed from Tweeter for some unknown reason, but we have the screenshot, and you can have a look at it:

We have no idea why Nokia would make a feature phone, not a smartphone, with a hardware configuration like that. What will a feature phone do with a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM? No answer yet. Maybe Nokia will have answers, and maybe we’ll learn about them next week, during Nokia Connection 2011 that is going to take place in Singapore.

In low- and middle-income countries where smartphones are not that spread yet, feature phones (especially Nokia’s feature phones, thanks to their good quality) are still very popular, that’s why I personally think that a more powerful feature phone will no doubt find many buyers. So the idea of making an S40 phone with a powerful processor and 512MB of RAM is a bit strange maybe, but not bad at all.

I begin to talk more about Nokia phones with such platforms like MeeGo, Symbian, Qt and even S40. And this after Nokia announced their cooperation with Microsoft to use Windows Phone OS in their future high-end devices. So if you think it’s just thoughts, I have come with facts – Nokia will launch a MeeGo-powered handset this year.

The words come to the Nokia N950 which is the successor of the N900. When we posted the Nokia N9 will be dropped off because of another handset, there were no words about the Nokia N950. But now we know for sure the Nokia N950 is that MeeGo-based smartphone the company is working on seriously.

Though Nokia’s CTO Rich Green didn’t show any photos of upcoming device at Nokia’s Developer Day, but here is a video where Green gave an extensive talk about the future of current Nokia platforms. As Nokia didn’t drop of MeeGo, we wondered what view the phone will have, and he told they have come up with some “very elegant” hardware and interesting UI.

If Green’s words become true and the Nokia N950 will be such awesome feature as he claimed, no one will accuse the Finnish company why they had dropped the Nokia N9. And according to Green’s words, the Nokia N950 is well-stocked as a developer platform and “we’ll see how that goes”. So we can assume it will be designed not for mass market but more towards developers.

I understand why Nokia continues to work on Qt for MeeGo, Symbian and Series 40, because there is not any guaranties Windows Phone will take out Nokia from this marsh immediately.

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Nokia traditionally used to equip its S40-based models with Opera Mini. However, apparently, this practice is coming to an end. Nokia Beta Labs has demonstrated Ovi Browser for S40 platforms, which has the same functionality as Opera Mini. Browser itself is still a beta-version and in-store applications of Ovi Store are not available. This program uses a special service for the opening page, compresses it and sends the compressed form on the phone.

In fact Ovi Browser is very similar to Opera Mini 4.2, although the Nokia Beta Labs does not report on the use of Opera code in its product. At the moment this browser denies some services and features, however, is not the final version, and therefore arguing that it will receive, and what will not is too early. So far, the browser can download the compressed pages, URL, and auto filling, supports the integration of search engines (Yahoo!, Google, Bing), and has a bookmark. The test version is available on the site browser.ovi.com for phones from the list of compatible devices.

At the end of last year it was reported that the Finnish company Nokia is finally ready for the launch of phones with support of two SIM-cards. At the time this information was only by word of mouth, but now we already have a written confirmation.

The company is preparing affordable phones of line Nokia S40, which will have touch screens, physical QWERTY-keyboard, two slots for SIM-cards and other opportunities currently offered only in fairly expensive devices, for example, based on Symbian S60 and Maemo.

Today, S40 phones are the most widely distributed in the world. As soon as they receive an update in the form of new interfaces and services, it is not hard to believe that Nokia will continue its leadership further.

Previously, we reported that the company will expand the range of low-cost S60 devices and will reduce the number of different modifications of smartphones by half. By 2011, smart phones with the S60 platform would amount to 55% of all sales of Nokia, the share of S40 phones will be 35%, while Maemo-gadgets will remain with 10%. In the second half of the year products running Maemo 6 will be released.