Symbian: The best-value smartphone OS for travellers

Nokia continues to invest in offline maps as a key differentiator for its products, and neither Google nor Apple nor any other commercial vender - only the wiki-style Open Street map project which I’ll compare in part 3 of this series - is really trying to compete with Nokia in offline mapping for mobile devices. You can buy downloadable offline maps for small areas, but there’s nothing comparable to the street-level global map database you can download to an 8GB memory card and use for free, offline, with the built-in Nokia Maps app on every Nokia smartphone. That narrows the choices greatly: Nokia dominates offline mapping for smartphones and mobile devices at least as much as Google (now being challenged by Apple) dominates online map services and apps. With maps the killer smartphone app for travellers, this makes the availability of offline map apps that store the geographic data on the device, don’t depend on “the cloud”, and can be used even where there’s no (or little) connectivity, the key distinguishing feature between quad-band GSM devices. Offline maps: The killer app for travellersĪs I explained last week, GSM voice cellphone and low-speed (GSM/GPRS/2G) cellular data service is available almost everywhere in the inhabited world, but high-speed (3G/4G) cellular data and Internet connectivity can’t be relied on for reasons of both availability and pricing. If something different works better for you, please say what, and why, in the comments. Since readers often ask, here’s what works for me. “If I’m not going to take my current cellphone with me - because it won’t work abroad or it’s too expensive to risk having lost or stolen - what’s the best smartphone to buy for world travel? Why? And where’s the best place to find one?” This week, I’ll try to answer the most frequently asked questions on this topic:

Unfortunately, that probably left many of you even more confused than before. Last week I wrote about the general issues that influence the choice of a smartphone for international travel.

Smartphones for international travel: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3Ģ022 update: Part 1 | Part 2 Choosing and buying a smartphone for international travel

Skype free download for mobile nokia c7