Symbian Belle doesn't look to be short of highlights, but for a combination of tech smarts and good old fashioned wow factor, its deep Near Field Technology (NFC) integration has to be one of its biggest drawcards. Let's take a closer look at one element of those NFC smarts – Tap to Pair. 

Nokia has been involved with NFC technology for years now – it was making NFC-capable phones as far back as 2006's Nokia 6131, after all.

In the current lineup there's the Nokia C7, which saw its NFC abilities activated with the arrival of the Symbian Anna update. This enables it to tap into Nokia-driven services and innovations such as the Museum of London's initiative of adding NFC tags to its exhibits.

But Symbian Belle will be the first version of the smartphone operating system to have NFC smarts as part of its integral makeup, and in recent weeks we've been hearing a fair bit about Tap to Pair and Tap to Share, two pillars of Symbian Belle's NFC makeup that finally give us a glimpse of NFC's full potential in action.

So what is Tap to Pair, then? It's a feature that allows you connect your Symbian Belle-equipped Nokia to compatible accessories using nothing more than a tap.

NFC is the secret sauce that make it all possible, but what makes Tap to Pair really exciting is not so much the technology itself, but what it allows you to do, and the huge potential it brings with it.

Nokia has already shown off the Nokia Play 360 music speaker, which utilises Tap to Pair to give you full control of your wireless music playback directly from your phone, requiring nothing more than bringing the two devices within range to get it started.

Nokia Play 360 wireless speaker system delivers NFC and Bluetooth

Imagine coming home from work, simply walking up to the hi-fi with your phone in your hand, giving it a gentle tap, then proceeding to play and control your music, adjust the volume and more directly from your handset's touchscreen as you take a seat. This is just one of the possibilities Tap to Pair offers on board future Symbian Belle devices such as the Nokia 600, Nokia 700 and Nokia 701.

We can't wait, and we look forward to getting into the nuts and bolts of just what Nokia's NFC tech is like to use out in the wild.

How about you? Are you looking forward to Tap to Pair? Do you think it's the kind of feature NFC needs to move out of the geeky fringes and into the mainstream? Drop us a line below with your comments!