what are differences between PalmOS and SymbianOS (epoc OR Q

I'm probably not the best place to answer this, but I'll have a go anyway. This sort of fits in the Mediaphone forum, but for now I'll leave it here...

Please note I can't guarntee the accuracy of this info, its what I read somewhere type thing...

Differences
1) technical - Symbian has three DFRD (Devive Family Reference Design) compared to PalmOS one. The three are Smartphones (aka Pearl), Mediaphones (aka Quartz - most like Palm OS), and Communicators (aka Crystal). Strictly speaking both Quartz and Crystal are Communicators with Crystal being keyboard based and Quartz being pen based). This is how this site is divided - one major section for each device.

Technically he OS has GT (Generic Technology) which is common code shared between all three OS's. Effectively (and this is horrible simplified) a GUI is put over this and its different for each DFRD. The OS is written in C++ and aseembly so is lower level than Palm OS is some respects. The majot technical difference is I think its 32 bit, supports multitasking and was wirtten for the modern PDA/Phone from the ground up. It can support difference processors with a little porting (see recent Intel news) and is generally a lot faster than both PalmOS and PPC (for example Symbian doesn't need the high clock speeds OS of PPC to achieve fast actions).

2) for the user the differences are mainly one of interface and of function. I think that the UI is better (but thats a very personal thing - Quartz is similar to PalmOS but there is tighter integration between applications and the device is intended and built from the start to be mobile communicative (i.e. e-mail, Web, Wap are very important and are core, not bolt on functions) thus the Contacts app and e-mail integrate closely, as do say Contacts and Agenda. You can learn more about this in the mediaphone section.

3) I have used a PalmOS device (Visor Deluxe) and the main advantages I see in it are simplicity, if you want to do basic thins it does it, but as soon as you want to do more advanced stuff it fails. It does support wireless communications phones so well. (I do like the springboard expandability).

By comparison Quartz (which is the main thing to compare it with) is multi tasking can support high colour screens, different screen sizes with ease (and if programmed correctly which is inteded from the off different screen sizes (its likely that different Quartz devices will have different sizes - standard is 1/4 VGA 240x320)

The units will have built in phones and support rich media (i.e. MP3, video, etc.) as well as wireless comms.

Basically it difficult to comapre because Quartz is far more powerful, it can do a lot more out of the bix and is the next gen OS its designed to do all the things that ou want today and which are limited by PalmOS restrictions. Its hard for me to say without an actual mediaphone device available but I recommend you look round this and the Symbian site.