Here is what the new Symbian Anna (PR2) is all about [VIDEO]

We already greeted the just announced Nokia E6 and Nokia X7 – the new models, which bring some freshness into the Finnish company’s lineup of Symbian phones.

With them comes and a new update to Symbian neatly called “Anna”, which The devices going to enjoy the update are the Nokia N8, E7, C7 and C6-01, alongside with the X7 and E6, of course, who are going to pack it out of the box.

Symbian Anna features all new refreshed icons, which reportedly should be easier to touch. Text input is also enhanced and made easier with a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode and split-screen view while typing. The homescreen has more natural side scrolling and would scroll through the available homescreens just like you would on iOS or Android.

The new homescreen look • The updated gallery

The web browser (v7.3) has also been updated and should now be more responsive, faster in page loading and navigation through history. There’s an always visible Back button, extended toolbar buttons, and a search-integrated address field. Not to mention the new split-screen virtual QWERTY keyboard is available here as well. Here’s a video of the browser and new text input in action.

The new portrait QWERTY keyboard • The new Symbian web browser • The new main menu icons

Next is the new Ovi Maps app (v3.06) which has been improved with faster, smarter search, check-in capabilities to Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, public transportation lines and the option to download full country maps over Wi-Fi.

The updated Social (v1.3) integration now includes status updates in the individual contact details, ability to re-tweet and view follower list in Twitter, higher resolution image uploads, and the option to add caption to images.

The Ovi Store (v2.06.xx) has also been enhanced with improved search, which now includes auto-complete and spell-checking. The file size limited for downloads over Wi-Fi has also been increased.

Developers will be happy to know that the new Symbian Anna comes with support for Flash Lite 4, Java Runtime 2.2, Qt Mobility 1.1 and Qt 4.7.

For business users, the update also adds instant messaging with Microsoft Communicator Mobile, email enhancements that include full meeting request support and hardware-accelerated device encryption.

Generally, Symbian Anna takes care of the most serious pending issues with Symbian ^3 from user’s point of view. And best of all, the “Anna” update is just the first of a series of upcoming updates. Can’t wait to see what they will be about.

Here’s a video demo of some of the new features and looks the update to Symbian brings.

Unfortunately, the Symbian Anna (PR2) update will be coming to the other Symbian ^3 devices “in the coming months”. I wonder what’s taking them so long.

Source • Srouce 2