Has Nokia's 'Belle' come just in time?

As Nokia unveils its latest Symbian update, 'Belle', we look at the good, the bad and the positively similar in a bid to see what the future holds for the company

The curtain has finally been raised on Nokia's Symbian 'Belle' update and first impressions have been resoundingly positive from the smartphone community.
It's a big update, bringing with it a lot of functionality, such as NFC, which is bizarre because Symbian Anna was only released three months ago.
While 'Belle' brings Nokia smartphone users into the 21st century it does so with a little help from a certain little green robot. Sure we're happy to finally see Nokia 'getting with the program', but we're unsure whether the world needs an Android 1.6-esque Nokia platform, when it already has Android 2.3 devices aplenty?
Straight off the bat our answer would be 'Yes'. For the simple reason that a lot of people have invested in Nokia's hardware, only to have ailing software let down what are, generally speaking, well built, quality devices.
While 'Belle' does look to be heavily inspired by Android with its drag-down blind, organisable and resizable widgets and similar visual style, it's easy to see that some solid hard work has gone into bringing the ailing platform up to muster.
Inclusion of NFC support will prove to be a great hit, not only with consumers but with traders too. A name like Nokia offering reasonably spec'd, NFC-ready devices can only do wonders for the roll-out of NFC payments and services. But we don't think that alone is reason enough to choose a Nokia device over one of its competitors.
Plus points aside, the main issue is that the aforementioned hard work should have been done three, even four years ago. Sure, it's nice to know that Nokia customers haven't been forgotten and that they'll finally be getting the device that they paid for – but should we forget the stubbornness and oversight that afflicted its devices in the first place?
The new smartphones (Nokia 710, 700, 600) being launched with 'Belle' look to be sound entries into a competitive market and with their reported price points they will definitely compete. But has the ship of loyalty finally sailed from Espoo's harbour, with a course plotted to calmer waters?
A good number of the usually stalwart Nokia fan-base have voted with their feet in recent months, making their way over to Android, iOS and even Windows Phone 7 platforms, which is emphasised by Nokia's rapidly diminishing market share.
Nokia's executives have spoken at length about their decision to overlook Android in favour of Windows Phone 7 and the release of 'Belle' shows users why that choice was made.
Belle is Nokia's ace-in-the-hole. It's like Android, but Symbian – and it has NFC. And this would be great if it were true. Unfortunately it isn't. It's still Symbian. It'll still have all those Symbian-related issues and no amount of NFC-fluff or Android-like drop-down menus can change that.
Nokia also had a massive head-start on the competition as well. A lead it failed to act on time and time again, which is why we're struggling to believe that the company has what it takes to start stealing clientelle back from Google and Apple.
We do like the look of Belle. It's perfectly adequate. But in a world where Windows Phone 7 Mango will soon rule the roost, it's difficult to see how Symbian will survive until 2016 in smartphones.
Our 2p? Symbian will power the low-end of the spectrum, Windows Phone Mango the rest.
Sorry, Symbian, but you've taken too long and implemented very little to actually get excited about in the grand scheme of things.