Good news for Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6-01 users: Nokia has confirmed that Symbian Belle will be heading your way via an update in the next few months, bringing with it a host of exciting new features for you to get to grips with. 

Say hello to Symbian Belle, Nokia's new smartphone OS

Nokia had previously hinted that Symbian Belle would make its way to existing Symbian Anna and Symbian^3 handsets, but today it confirmed as much, revealing that the update will be issued some time in Q4 but definitely before the end of the year.

That makes for particularly good news for users of the four former Symbian^3 handsets, who have only just updated to Symbian Anna, let's not forget. Speaking of which, the upgrade to Symbian Belle will also be made available to the three handsets that have launched on Symbian Anna itself – that is the Nokia E6, Nokia X7 and the Nokia 500.

So what new treats can you look forward to in Symbian Belle? Well, for starters it supports double the homescreens – six as opposed to just three – and then there's the flexibility and layout freedom of free-form widgets you can arrange however you like on those homescreens.

Then there are all kinds of navigation tweaks and interface improvements, including a reworked status bar that locates all important information such as incoming messages, missed calls and the like in a neat drop-down layout.

Throw in a multitalented new lockscreen plus a host of other improvements and enhancements and you have what is ultimately an even bigger step forward than the jump from Symbian^3 to Symbian Anna.

We'll be sure to let you know as soon as we get a firmer fix on when we can expect the Symbian Belle update to land, but at least you have Symbian Anna to play with in the meantime!