Nokia briefly shows off Symbian homescreen make-over

These snazzy new widgets could be on their way to your N8
These snazzy new widgets could be on their way to your N8

Over in China, Nokia has been detailing more of its device-related plans including a quick glimpse at a possible version of the overhauled Symbian UI.

Although Nokia's new deal with Microsoft means that Symbian won't get the same level of attention that it's accustomed to, Nokia has promised upgrades for existing devices.

The new homescreen shows a number of widgets, including weather, inbox and what look like floating browser and Facebook shortcuts.

The inbox seems to have just about been dragged into the 21st century, having done away with the awful '90s-style Nokia font and incorporating more interactive contact images on the homescreen.

Button moon

Three buttons at the bottom of the homescreen seem to be call, menu and home buttons, although the menu screen mock up the company showed off at Mobile World Congress also features a search button.

With the UI updates shown-off on a Nokia N8, it's reasonable to imagine that this is an early glimpse at an upgrade coming to all Symbian^3 handsets.

The Finnish company has pledged to sell 150 million Symbian handsets over the next year to tide itself over while Windows Phone handsets are in development.

At first it seemed that Nokia would not be developing any new Symbian hardware, but comments from a company exec promised that Symbian "will still be around, but it's just going to go somewhere around the corner."

There's no word on when we'll see the Symbian UI overhaul hit Nokia handsets, hopefully before the first Windows Phone handsets come out, no matter how rushed they are.

Via Baidu and Engadget

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Former UK News Editor for TechRadar, it was a perpetual challenge among the TechRadar staff to send Kate (Twitter, Google+) a link to something interesting on the internet that she hasn't already seen. As TechRadar's News Editor (UK), she was constantly on the hunt for top news and intriguing stories to feed your gadget lust. Kate now enjoys life as a renowned music critic – her words can be found in the i Paper, Guardian, GQ, Metro, Evening Standard and Time Out, and she's also the author of 'Amy Winehouse', a biography of the soul star.

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