The problem isn't so much that nokia's rivals are cheaper... more that nokia's phones and software are rubbish.

I've known lots of people who used to swear by nokias, now they just swear at them.

I certainly spent a whole day swearing at the new e51 I got from work. Not only wouldn't it import my addressbook from my old K750 but the menus are fiddly and not intuitive, it takes ages to connect a call, it often doesn't ring when people call me and it needs recharging every night!!!

Way to flush your business down the toilet nokia.

I'll certainly never have another nokia if I have any choice about it!

I partially agree with you. Nokias smartphones are terrible, quite simply because the Symbian operating system that ships with them is slow, buggy and for all intents and purposes, simply not up to the job. The N95, for example, is Nokia's flagship smartphone and *still* suffers from crashes, instability and bugs that should have been ironed out way before it went into production.

However, Nokia has realised this and bought out Symbian in June this year for £209m, presumably because it recognises that the OS is not up to scratch and wants to have full control over its development. Whether Nokia's design and cash input is enough to rescue its smartphones before its competitors eat up the rest of the market is debatable.

Having said that, a Nokia phone without Symbian is an excellent product. I've got a Nokia 6300 and it's fast, usable and has a great form factor. Nokia know how to make great phones - let's hope it figures out how to get Symbian-based ones working as well as the rest of the range - and quickly!

It calls, it texts, it lasts about 10 days to 2 weeks on a charge.

Its a 1110.

..was the indestructible 3310, first tehy took forever to move to decent screens, so i waited, then they took ages for decent cameras, so I waited, then I gave in and got a SE T610, not looked back.

Seriously looking at a SEX1 [chortle] soon, the K800i was excellent while it lasted, keys don't react well to water though. and screen + keys in same pocket = scratched screen. Oh well. I have friends with N95s one is held together with tape (after a very minor drop) and one is stuck in low volume and other problems. I also find the menus perplexing. Oh and I hated the way one some previous Nokias they made the red and green buttons coloured via the light, so if it was dark (like mid-call) you wouldn't know which button to hang up with. It's the LITTLE THINGS.

If it takes ages to connect a call, that sounds like a network provider issue. As for the N95 "still" suffering from crashes, instability and bugs, what on earth firmware do you have installed? Or third-party software?

After seven months since v21.0.016 firmware was installed, I got my first crash last week because my MicroSD card went bad. Replacing it resolved the problem, so Sandisk's fault. Then I switched to Three this week and their Skype application (actually iSkoot in disguise) crashed it, so I uninstalled that. iSkoot has a memory leak so bad that the phone loses 1MB of RAM every hour the program is running.

All too often we see SymbianOS being blamed for performance issues which are actually caused by ancient firmware, faulty hardware or dodgy third-party apps.

Obviously your outraged reply will confirm that none of these things are causing your problem, because it's all Nokia's fault. OK then!

Getting back to the topic, I'll be surprised if Nokia's market share picks up because the newly released N96 is way too expensive given current economic conditions, and although it's technically superior to pretty much anything else out there, the design is seriously bland and uncool compared to Apple's overhyped gadget. It's also more expensive. Oh yeah, and those HTC Touch Diamond's are damn sexy and about £130 quid cheaper too. Nokia seriously needs to enter the touch-screen age if it is to survive.

I think you will find that your phone, the Nokia 6300 is indeed a Symbian, it's just a series 40 rather than a series 60!

Mines the one with the N91 in!

...which I have had for a few weeks now. I agree that their GUI is flawed, unlike the consistent and better thought out GUI on non smartphone Sony Ericssons and of course, the iPhone. However, the E71 is a lot lot better. Mine has yet to crash and the physical ergonomics are excellent. Plus, the battery lasts for ages, it does everything, in fact, I have dumped my laptop because with the exception of 'power user' tasks (PhotoShop, large spreadsheets, illustration etc), it does it all from Blackberry like email management to multi tasking office suite and cut and paste between it all. All in a very thin sexy robust form factor. Try one.

I'll add my name to your list. I absolutely love my 1112, and I would say I'd be lost without it... but the whole point is that I wouldn't! And I can get a new one for 20 sheets too. Come to think of it I should stock up before they decide they're too good and stop making them.

That Nokia 6300 is one excellent phone, stone cold classic, But Series 40 Is not Symbian. 'Series XX' relates to Nokias development platforms more than it does to Symbian.

I dont think anyone at Nokia is too concerned, they have a rediculous market share, massive portfolio (especially in entry markets) and are going directly into services. They've took a calculated risk by buying and giving away Symbian foundation but I reckon thier share prices will increase as they are being very sensible.

SEX1 = Ha ha!

My Nokia E51 works fine, unless I install stuff on it! Even Nokias own Internet Radio app rebooted my phone regularly until I kicked it out. Another radio app screwed up my address book, so I had to reinstall the whole phone software.

Do people really want installable native apps screwing up their phones? I don't think so.

Which really calls into question the whole idea of "smartphones". Feature phones are getter smarter all the time. And they run benign Java apps which rarely, if ever, crash a phone.

Even PCs are are "dumbing down" to become more reliable and user-friendly. Many of the simple cheap computers inspired by the EEE pc are aimed at the new paradigm of running all software "in the cloud" and installing only sandboxed "managed code" such as Java and Flash to run internet apps such as Google Docs.