Samsung drops Symbian – what next for the i8910 HD?
Posted by soHD in News, Problems, tags: i8910 HD, Omnia HD, Symbian S60
You’ve probably all seen the headlines by now. Samsung is rumoured to drop Symbian support on future handsets according to Samsung VP Don Joo Lee. This follows an analyst report that suggested something very similar. Samsung’s roadmap will instead concentrate on the company’s newly announced Bada platform, along with Android and Windows Mobile.
To be honest, this news surprises me not in the slightest. You just have to look at the support given to the company’s supposed flagship, the Samsung i8910 HD, to see that the phone and OS was not on the top list of priorities.
Where did it all go so wrong? When the phone was announced at MWC earlier in the year there was so much promise. Even now, purely looking at the hardware side, it’s still one of the most feature-rich phones on the market. You get a beautiful 3.7-inch OLED capacitive display, HD video recording, 8MP camera, excellent codec support and 8GB/16GB internal storage. This phone has it all, even compared to anything on the market or announced as we speak.
However it seems that Samsung almost didn’t want the phone to do well. There was a very slow rollout, hardly any marketing to promote the phone and a severe lack of firmware updates. Part of the problem was choosing an OS in Symbian 5th Edition that just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to the competition.
It’s a clunky piece of software that’s functional but certainly not inspiring as one would expect for such a flagship. It’s also clearly not designed for an exclusive touch experience. I have always thought how amazing it would be to see the hardware used in the i8910 HD along with Android. I currently use a HTC Hero as my day-to-day phone and I find it a much more of a pleasurable experience, despite not being as powerful as the i8910.
Maybe Samsung realized this pretty early on and decided to concentrate their efforts behind the scenes and making sure its next flagship will be the one to own. Whatever the reasons, it’s disappointing news for all i8910 HD owners. With Samsung concentrating their efforts on Bada and future developments, I would be very surprised if significant firmware updates for the i8910 are released going forward.
So, will anything change in the future? From what I’ve heard, Samsung will be using Android for its high-end handsets, Windows Mobile for the enterprise market and Bada for the mid-range phones. Whatever OS the next flagship uses, I really hope that Samsung gives it the support that both the phone and owners deserve.
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I totally feel let down by Samsung. Where is the App store support, the FM transmitter, the wireless HDMI dongle that was supposed to be an accessory?
For a flagship phone, there is no support from Samsung. Now I know why so many people just buy an iphone.
Didn’t surprised me, i love my i8910, the only things i don’t like is the OS, S60 is decent, but could had been something better like Andriod.
I wonder will there be a chance to upgrade the i8910 os from symbian to … i don’t know android ? I can’t be that hard to do it is just a matter of programming
Relax guys, it was just a rumor, samsung has confirmed that they will not be dropping symbian. After all, they have invested so much in the symbian foundation. Samsung’s official statement says that they want to give their consumer the right of choice, hence they will keep a multi smartphone OS platform for their products- winmo, symbian, android and there own home brewed BADA OS will all be in their product profile. So dont sweat too much, samsung is not letting symbian go anywhere.
whatever the OS is / will be, there is no excuse for samsung to let us down with our device without any update : once we paid, it seems we’re not interesting samsung anymore…Nokia use the same OS on the 5800 Xpress Music ans has made several updates…It’s the first time i got an high range device without any update. Begining of 2010 i will move to android, with ever the SE Xperia X10, or HTC Dragon. I don’t know yet what will be my choice between HTC and SE, but you can be sure of one thing : it will NOT be a samsung anymore. They won’t get me twice, whetver how “beautiful” the device or the specs could be…And i hope many people will follow the same way : you can’t treat consummers like samsung do…
I agree with the first 3 guys – Symbian is a rather clumsy and weird OS. It’s a bit like Linux – u either hate it or love it.
Now dnt get me wrong – i love my omnia HD. BUT I love my omnia (i900) more because i think windows mobile is by far the better OS… it’s a bit laggy but i love it more for the simplicity and the rich features such as emailing get pushed straight through and things like YOU DON’T HAVE TO DOUBLE CLICK EVERYTHING TO ACCESS IT.
MobileBurn.com – 8 days ago
Samsung not dropping Symbian for bada, says DigiTimes article is inaccurate — This morning we received confirmation back from Samsung’s Seoul headquarters that the article posted by DigiTimes yesterday claiming Samsung was dropping Symbian for bada was inaccurate. Read the full story here.
http://techblips.dailyradar.com/story/samsung-not-dropping-symbian-for-bada-says-digitimes/
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I just hate that i didnt take N97, i had no clue that samsung wont upgrade their phones. I live in Finland and we havent got even that audio codec update. 650 euros went to shit. I wont buy samsung products ever again, and i want my money back.
I agree with Juise, I live in finland too and I could have just settled for an andriod … the updates are ready but performing the updates is headache and i still havent gotten mine. Next year i have to choose cearfully
I totally agree with you guys! Am from singapore, there is not app store for samsung i8910 HD at all!
It says a lot when people have to hack such an expensive phone just so you can install apps from one of their major competitors!
Nokia N97 may lack the hardware, But at least it get useful updates such as Ovi store, Kinetic Scrolling (not just in the web app) SAMSUNG should be ashamed for charging so much cash and not providing the customers the support the handset requires……
SHAME ON YOU SAMSUNG (I WILL AVOID YOU NEXT TIME)
Whatever Samsung plans it’s absolutely galling to have a phone that doesn’t deliver what it promised. No Apps store and terrible web performance – I’m on Orange version and I can’t believe you can have such a poor a web browser with no Back/forward button for scrolling. Customisation not great either. Unfortunately I am only two months in to a two year contract!!
Hi Sev, have you looked into Skyfire for your web browser? It’s available now for symbian 3rd edition but there are ways to get it to run on the N97 so it could be used for the omnia!, The 5th edition is due out in January and looks really good with built in flash support for online video streams and blazing fast browsing.
regards
Mark
Feel same as most of the guys above. Should have bought N97. Nokia at least cares for its customers. Though N97 is disappointing hardware, Nokia backed it with such commitment with great Apps, updates and Ovi store.
I for sure shall never consider a Samsung again.
I almost bought this thing. I was drooling at this phone, looking at all the hardware specs and reviews. But yesterday, my friend told me about the Samsung Galaxy. I looked at the specs, reviews and stuff and thought i have finally spotted my dream phone. Then i happened to notice that the OS is still Android 1.5. I searched online and found that a lot of users are irritated because Samsung has refused to provide updates for the phone. (Yes, refused!) I was totally shocked. Then on an inspiration, I googled for i8910 problems. And guess what? I stumbled upon the petition and the 25-page report. When i had finished reading, I was appalled at the number of bugs, and the attitude of Samsung Mobiles. Looks like Samsung is doing the same thing for all their top-end mobiles. I’ve decided to avoid Samsung mobiles like plague from now. A pity, because they make such good, high spec phones.