The Symbian Anna update for Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6-01 smartphones is intended to speed up the OS and make it more stable. However, it also comes with some features users have requested, such as the a Portrait QWERTY keyboard. Check out out hands-on to see how effective the new keyboard is.
When Symbian^3 launched few people guessed how important a Portrait QWERTY keyboard would be to many users and was one of the comments most fed-back to the development team.
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Having the option to hold your Nokia smartphone either length-wise or width-wise is important, perhaps it's a sign that many of us grew up texting on a smaller Portrait keyboard? Whatever the reason, Symbian Anna has corrected that oversight so you'll now be able to fire off messages and emails using whichever method you prefer.
We've been testing out the Symbian Anna updates on the Nokia Oro with its 3.5-inch touchscreen, which is a good size to make the most of the Portrait QWERTY. The keys are compact without being too small and there is space around each key to give a margin of error when typing.
The layout has three rows of 10 keys each, with four keys being used for ' , . and @ which are the most commonly used function keys, you'll have to admit. Opt for capitals and you'll find that “ ? ! and / come into play marks. We're not too sure why these keys were chosen, but as we tend to use the question mark and exclamation mark a great deal we like that they're there.
Below the main keys you'll find a large Spacebar flanked on the left by a key that allows you to switch between upper and lower case, while the right is a delete key. The bottom row has six more function keys, which help you navigate your message and add symbols with ease.
We've found the layout easy to use and simply tapping the empty message screen pops the keyboard up ready for use.
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Check out our Nokia Symbian Anna Portrait QWERTY hands-on photo gallery:
