10 Things Symbian Does Better Than Android

Yesterday I shared with you 10 things that I’ve found Android does much better than Symbian. However, there’s more to the story, so today I have a list of 10 things that my Symbian-powered touchscreen phones do much better than my Android-powered HTC Eris, which is currently running Android 1.5. Obviously this isn’t a complete list, but it’s things that stand out to me after a few months of actively carrying both phones.
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1. Gmail – Believe it or not, while the overall experience might not be better, my Gmail consistently arrives in Nokia Messaging on my Nokia N97 a good 5-7 seconds faster than it does on the HTC Eris. Obviously this is a big win for Nokia Messaging, but since Nokia Messaging is also on Symbian devices at the moment, we’ll count it as a win there, too. Aside from the speed of arrival, though, Android trumps Symbian in the overall Gmail experience, so perhaps this one is a wash?
2. Multitasking – both platforms multitask easily, and while Android does a better job of intelligently managing those applications for you, the actual experience is much better on Symbian. On Symbian, it’s much more obvious (in most apps) how to ‘background’ an app, and then switch back to it. After several days (and 2 task management apps) I’m still trying to get a good handle on how to complete this process consistently on Android. It’s not always clear which applications are still running on Android, nor is it easy to consistently know how to send them to the background.
Of course, there are 3rd party apps for both platforms to make this better, but Symbian does it better ‘out-of-the-box’, especially with such eye candy as the Samsung i8910′s built-in task manager, shown below. It’s exceptionally easy to tell which apps are still running, and to switch between them or close them altogether. Another frustrating aspect is that many Android apps have an option for background notifications, which let them alert you of events even when they’re not the active application. This is awesome, but without being able to ‘kill’ an app easily, it can be frustrating, as I’m never sure if I still have Seesmic running, for instance, which brings me to my next point…

Multitasking on the Samsung i8910

3. Twitter – I’m a power user of Twitter, and actively manage 3 different accounts. Thus, finding a suitable Twitter app on various platforms is quite a challenge. On Android, I was using Twidroid, as it seems to be the only option that supports multiple accounts. Unfortunately, Twidroid doesn’t hold a candle to Gravity, mainly suffering in terms of performance. Twidroid is slow to load and even slower to refresh my timelines. It’s also infinitely slower when composing and publishing a tweet when compared to Gravity. I’ve beta tested TweetCaster, from Handbrake, and it’s much better, but still not up to the quality of Gravity. Seesmic for Android has now added support for multiple accounts, but it’s still not as smooth of an experience as Gravity is on my Symbian phones, specifically in getting notifications and the like.

Gravity on the Samsung i8910

4. Last.FM – Android has a native Last.FM app, straight from the company, so you’d think it’d be way better than Mobbler, which is independently developed by a 3rd party (really just an insanely talented group of programmers). However, that’s not the case – Mobbler completely trumps the native Last.FM client on Android, mainly for 2 reasons: Sleep, and Alarm. When I go to sleep at night, I start a station of soothing music, typically something like Norah Jones or Enya. However, if I leave that running all night, my Last.FM profile would be totally messed up, so I use Mobbler’s sleep timer to stop the station after 60 minutes. I also like to wake up to music, so I’m able to use Mobbler’s alarm clock function to blast a custom station at a designated time, so I’m more likely to wake up.

Mobbler on the i8910

5. Waze – Waze is actually much better on Symbian, again for a few reasons. For starters, on my HTC Eris, the bottom toolbar is hidden, and I have to press the ‘Menu’ button on the phone to get it to pop up – this can take a few seconds, which can directly affect the accuracy of my reports. It’s also a somewhat unnecessary step that the Symbian version doesn’t have. Also, Waze seems to simply run better on my Symbian-powered phones, with less delay or slowness. On my HTC Eris, Waze seems to lag quite a bit.

HTC Eris on the left, Samsung i8910 on the right

6. Music – the sound quality on my Nokia N97 is much better than my HTC Eris, specifically through headphones or a plug-in speaker system. The N97 also facilitates syncing with my desktop music collection better, with the option of mass storage mode or media transfer mode. The Eris, on the other hand, doesn’t immediately connect as anything, really. I have to open the menu and choose ‘mount memory card’ to be able to access that. I personally find the Symbian music player a bit easier to navigate, as well, though that’s really more personal preference. Of course, the Eris has access to Amazon’s MP3 store baked right in, but that doesn’t help me access the music I already have.
7. Calendar – while I don’t use the calendar heavily, I do use it to keep up with my daily schedules, and adding several events all at once on Android can be frustrating – there’s no way (that I’ve figured out) to be in the ‘Day’ mode and change to the next day. As far as I can tell, I have to manually back out to the full month and then click on the next day. Also, when adding times, you are forced to use these little wheels, similar to a slot machine. While these things have kinetic scrolling, I’d still like the option to just type in a number quickly, as it can be somewhat difficult to get the wheels to stop right where you want them to (exactly like a slot machine, come to think of it).
8. Powers Down – yeah, I seriously put this as an item because it’s really been annoying me. When you want to turn your Android-powered smartphone off, you press and hold the power button…..which pops up a submenu……from which you choose ‘power off’…….which pops up a confirmation dialog……where you again choose ‘OK’ to finally turn the blasted thing off. Oh, and it also takes for freakin ever to power back on. With Symbian, you press and hold the power button and the whole thing shuts off – boom. It’s also roughly 2x faster loading up and being ready to use.

9. Phone – one thing that Symbian fanboys have always enjoyed is that Symbian is more of a phonesmart than a smartphone – that is, the phone part is always a priority, and it shows. The phone aspects of Android don’t really work all that great, and can be confusing. For instance, when I’m on a phone call and hold the HTC Eris up to my face, the screen goes off. This is great, as it prevents me from accidentally pushing a button with my cheek. Unfortunately, the Eris doesn’t turn the screen back on when I pull the phone away from my face, so I have to press the end button to turn the screen back on, slide to unlock, and THEN do whatever I wanted to do. Completely unnecessary, and somewhat daunting to press the ‘end’ key in the middle of a call that I don’t want to end.
10. Developer Opportunities – As my friend Jason Harris at Techraver.com pointed out, Symbian has more opportunities for developers to build an app. Currently, if you want to build an Android app, you need the Android SDK…and that’s about it (save for web apps). Symbian, on the other hand, lets you use native C++, Qt, Python, Web Runtime, Java, and a few others. There are also millions more Symbian devices in use than there are Android devices – a great opportunity for a developer looking for the biggest market opportunity.
Can you come up with anything else that Symbian rocks at but other popular platforms like Android have trouble with? Join in the comments and let us know. Check back here tomorrow for my final conclusions on Android vs Symbian.