Hello people,
I've been using SonyEricsson phones for the past several years (T610, V600i), but recently have become interested in some of the possibilities an S60 phone offers (such as onboard python). Looking at what's available, the N80 looks like it has some really nice features, and not too bad a price from my current operator.
However, talking with colleagues and friends who have a fair amount of experience in this area (the company I work for makes embedded software for cellphones), most of them tell me that S60 phones feel too slow and clunky, and that I'm better off sticking to the SE platform.
In spite of that, I still thing that S60 seems interesting. I used to be a Palm user until my cellphone and iPod took over 90% of what I used the Palm for, and I feel like I miss having a "hackable" handheld. What do you think, would something like an N80 fulfill my handheld hacking needs, and/or what it drive me nuts by having an interface much slower than what I'm used to on SE phones?
Personally I find the S60 interface very responsive, it's also worth noting that in the latest round of Smartphone benchmarks the N93 (also an S60v3 device) totally annihalated the competition. The S40 platform isn't terribly fast but things have improved there as well. I wouldn't go back to "just" a cellphone since using S60. UIQ is a very nice platform as well, however the UIQ phones tend to be considerably more expensive that their S60 counterparts.
As for the hackability of the phone... well it depends what you want to do. In theory they're just as alterable as a Palm. The Symbian platform provides a powerful tool for application development with some reasonably good low level interfacing and the J2ME platform provides some nice RAD opportunities. The catalog of S60v3 Symbian apps isn't huge just now, but it's certainly growing. For true hackability (like totally replacing the OS), well the system isn't as well known as the Palm yet so don't expect to see Linux running on a S60 anytime soon.
On N80 forum You have lot of information concerned that device. Do your judge about!
I have used the S60 v3 for a couple of days now installing various apps onto my phone and I think the OS kicks ass. I have a PDA running a windows OS and this is very slow compaired to the S60 stuff.. For me S60 all they way.😊