Nokia ships Symbian 'Anna' E6 and X7 handsets

Nokia has begun shipping the first handsets to feature the new 'Anna' version of Symbian, the phone maker said on Tuesday.

Nokia has begun shipping the first handsets to feature the new 'Anna' version of Symbian, the E6 (above) and the X7. Photo credit: Nokia

The business-oriented E6 and multimedia-focused X7 will both go in sale in Europe, Eurasia and Asia-Pacific countries, while the E6 will also be available in the Middle East and Africa. The E6 has a similar form factor to the successful Qwerty-keyboard E71 and E72 models, but adds a touchscreen.

The smartphones use a revamped Symbian browser — version 7.3 — that does away with the bottom row of icons and therefore provides more room for the page being browsed. They also include split-screen text input and revamped Ovi Maps.

Both handsets come with eight-megapixel cameras. The Nokia E6 also offers direct access to Mail for Exchange, Microsoft Communicator Mobile and Microsoft SharePoint.

Nokia and Microsoft have had an alliance around productivity apps for some time. The bond between the two companies strengthened significantly in February, when Nokia said it would phase out Symbian in favour of the Windows Phone platform.

Symbian-based handsets will, as a result of that deal, only remain on sale for the next couple of years, but the company is still updating the venerable operating system and will support it until 2016. In a blog post on Tuesday, Nokia promised that Symbian Anna would be rolled out to users of the Nokia N8, E7, C7 and C6 handsets "in the coming months".