Nokia has commenced the rollout of Nokia Belle to existing Symbian handset owners, bringing a range of enhancements and new features for users to enjoy.

The update is available for the Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7 and Nokia Oro. The update will be made available for the Nokia 500 in the next few weeks.

Once users have updated their handsets to Nokia Belle, they will see 6 homescreens instead of three, larger live Widgets on the screen, with fast access to popular services and applications.

Additionally Microsoft apps Lync and OneNote will be made available to download for Nokia Belle users.

“The new and improved Nokia Belle interface also includes new features like imaging applications with HD Video recording at 30 Frames Per Second and a visually improved browser enabling high-quality browsing and viewing of web videos,” explained Nokia. “The menus have been simplified and a notifications bar has been added to make accessing key features or settings, very fast.”

To update your handset to Nokia Belle, you will need to connect it to a PC as the update is too large to be done Over The Air. You will need the latest version of Nokia PC Suite installed, which can be downloaded from the Nokia website.

The Nokia Belle update is being rolled out in the UK, Italy, India, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Poland, Turkey, Germany, Vietnam and Indonesia. To check the availability of Nokia Belle for your handset, see the Software Status page on the Nokia website.

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A UK College is set to become the first in the country to offer an evening study course devoted entirely to photography using an Apple iPhone.

The course in 'iPhoneography' will be held as Kensington and Chelsea College, in London.

Students will use an iPhone to take images, and will then be instructed in the use of various apps to help produce stunning pictures.

According to course instructor Richard Gray, all you need is 'a passion for photography and a creative mind.'

“With the right apps and skills, the iPhone can be a powerful creative tool,” said Mr. Gray. “It is a great levelling force within photography – no longer do you need expensive or complex equipment to produce great images. The traditional photographic world has no idea of the vast range of creative processes that can be explored on the iPhone. And its accessibility means every moment of the day is now an opportunity for a photo.”

During the course, students will be given instruction on using a wide array of photography apps, and techniques to get the very best from them. There will also be an introduction to the online iPhoneography community.

Students on the course will be required to provide their own iPhone. If the course is a success, it may be expanded to include other smartphones that offer quality cameras as well as a range of photography apps.

There will be a taster session of the course on offer at the Apple store in Regent Street in London on the 15th February at 7pm.

Image above captured with an Apple iPhone, using Snapseed and Filterstorm

With lots of white snow on the ground here in the UK at the moment, it seems an opportune moment for Nokia to give official confirmation to the Nokia Lumia 800 in White.

Available around the end of February/beginning of March, the White Lumia 800 is the same inside as previous versions of the device, same 1.4 GHz processor, 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack display and same Windows Phone software.

Nokia state that the process of selection meant working through hundreds of pigments to find the 'perfect white'. The colour is embedded into the polycarbonate body, which means it should remain a vibrant white for the life of the device.

The Nokia Lumia 800 has been a good first step for Nokia in their collaboration with Microsoft, and there is a strong market for white smartphones.

“The story of the Nokia Lumia is one of reduction and purity,” says Nokia colour and material designer, Tiina Aarrasshe. “White is the ultimate colour of reduction. It is also perfect for emphasising the black polished screen. If you stand a White Lumia 800 on a table the body almost disappears, and the black screen seems to lift up and float.”

The Nokia Lumia 800 in White is expected to launch in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Finland and Switzerland, with other countries to follow shortly.

See our Nokia Lumia 800 deals page for the latest prices and offers.

Symbian may not be the OS of choice for new Nokia devices these days, but there are still many devices in use worldwide. Now Skype have released an update to their app, bringing their services to Symbian handsets running Nokia Belle.

Formerly known as Symbian Belle, Nokia Belle is found on recently released devices such as the Nokia 603 and Nokia 701, and will also be rolled out to existing devices including the Nokia N8, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6-01 during February.

The Skype app will support Skype-to-Skype voice calls via 3G and WiFi, as well as instant messaging, SMS, picture sending and file sharing. The app has also received a UI makeover, and general bug problems have been resolved improving the overall performance.

Using Skype-to-Skype over WiFi is free, but you run the risk of charges from your network when using the service over 3G, so be sure you have a suitable data plan. This applies to file and picture sharing, too.

If you have a device running Nokia Belle, then head on over to the Nokia Store to download the app.

HTC has announced in a press release via its Dutch office that a white version of the HTC Sensation is set to be released in the Netherlands on the 1st March, and it will ship with the latest version of the Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich.

The news will be welcomed by existing owners of the HTC Sensation, as it could mean an update to existing handset is due anytime soon, although an exact date isn't indicated in the press release.

The White Sensation will offer exactly the same features as those found in the current Dark Grey handset, utilising a stylish aluminium design for the shell, and sporting a large, 4.3 inch qHD display.

The handset is equipped with an 8.0 Megapixel camera, with 1080p HD video record functionality, and includes the popular HTC Sense user interface. Powered by a 1.2 GHz Dual Core processor, the Sensation also includes TV Out support via MHL A/V Link, as well as Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi with DLNA and WiFi Hotspot, and high speed mobile broadband via HSDPA.

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RIM, the name behind the BlackBerry brand, has a lot of work to do if it is to keep pace with the leaders in the smartphone market. The new range of handsets isn't expected anytime soon, with many expecting little until the latter half of 2012. However, thanks to the guys at Crackberry, we have a sneak peak at a possible future release, the BlackBerry London.

One of the many accusations levelled at BlackBerry devices is the lack of innovation in design; whilst the traditional BlackBerry look can be considered a classic, and is very practical for heavy messaging use, it is starting to look a little dated, associated with a different era in mobile phones. It seems RIM have taken this onboard, as the BlackBerry London seems to be more in line with what a modern, smart, up-to-date device would look like.

The BlackBerry London will run the updated version of the BB OS, BlackBerry 10, formerly known as BBX. Little else is known about the device other than the info that can be seen on the slide above. Sporting a large touchscreen, the device shows a rear facing camera with flash, and what appears to be a front facing camera for video calls.

With the claim that the BlackBerry London is 'all about changing the game' we are hoping for a completely fresh, competitive device, that retains what is good about BlackBerry, i.e. excellent messaging and connectiivty.

There's no detail when, or even if, the BlackBerry London will hit the streets. We'll keep you posted when we hear more.

To check out the existing range of BlackBerry devices, see our BlackBerry phones page.

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The iPhone continues to be a dominant player in the smartphone market, with recent figures showing the iPhone accounted for 25 per cent of smartphone sales during the fourth quarter of 2011.

The stats, from Juniper Research, show that although the iPhone 4S has proven to be very popular with smartphone owners since launch, that it is mainly thanks to the aggressive pricing on the iPhone 3G S that has helped the iPhone to achieve such high sales figures.

In total, worldwide last year, over 470 million smartphones were sold, with 149 million devices shipped in Q4. It is a noteworthy feat for the Apple iPhone to be able to claim such a large percentage of sales, given the limited range of iPhone handsets, when compared to the vast number of devices running on rival platforms.

The research also points to the emerging strength of Samsung in the smartphone market, mainly due to the popularity of the Samsung Galaxy S II. Samsung managed to increase their market share from just 4.7 per cent in Q4 2010 to over 21 per cent in Q4 2011.

“The scale of Samsung's product range is saturating the market,” said Daniel Ashdown, from Juniper. “Apple has had to counter Samsung's products like the Galaxy Ace in order to maintain the visibility of its band.” commenting on the importance of the iPhone 3G S in helping Apple to achieve such strong results.

Of the remaining big 5 smartphone manufacturers, only HTC were able to improve on their Q4 2010 figures, with 12 million handsets shipping during the fourth quarter of 2011. RIM lost 0.7 per cent, selling 14.4 million BlackBerry handsets, whilst Nokia were down by 31 per cent.

There are many new handsets expected from the likes of Nokia and Samsung at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress, including the much anticipated Samsung Galaxy S 3, and many are hoping Apple will bring something new to the table with the next iPhone. It sets up 2012 to be the most competitive year in the smartphone market yet.

After much rumour, Samsung has officially confirmed the forthcoming release of the Samsung Galaxy S Advance, a mid range dual core Android smartphone.

The Samsung I9070 Galaxy S Advance includes a large, 4.0 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, supporting up to 16 million colours and with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. The display uses Gorilla Glass for extra protection, and there is support for multi-touch input.

There will be two variants of the device, offering internal storage of either 8 GB or 16 GB, with memory expansion available via Micro SD memory cards, up to 32 GB in size.

Powered by a dual core 1 GHz processor, the Galaxy S Advance will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread on board, and also includes a 5.0 Megapixel camera with autofocus, geotagging, face and smile detection and an LED Flash. The camera is capable of recording 720p HD video at 30 fps, and there is a secondary front-facing 1.3 Megapixel camera for video calls.

Onboard the device includes a GPS receiver, and includes TV Out support, as well as offering a full media player with DivX and complete social networking integration.

Data is covered with inclusion of HSDPA up to 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA up to 5.76 Mbps, as well as WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, with DLNA and WiFi Hotspot included.

Initially available in Black or White, the Galaxy S Advance from Samsung is expected to be available for free on most mid range price plans across various networks, and should be available to market within the next 6 – 8 weeks.

The latest manufacturer to release details of Q4 2011 profits is Motorola, and they make rather painful reading. Operating profits dropped to a pretty abysmal £44.6m operating loss.

Sales were up 5 percent on 2010, with full year sales up a healthy 22 percent across the division. The overall operating loss for 2011 was £181.4m.

Unit sales in Q4 2011 were 10.5 million phones, of which 5.3 million were smartphones, whilst Tablet sales were at 200,000. In total during 2011 Motorola Mobility shipped 42.4 mobile units, of which 18.7 million were smartphones, and over 1 million Tablets.

Motorola Mobility is currently working through a planned acquisition by Google, which is expected to be completed early this year.

“In the fourth quarter, we received very positive consumer response to Motorola RAZR, which combined an iconic brand with ultra-thin in an innovative smartphone,” said Motorola Mobility Chairman and CEO, Sanjay Jha. “We remain energised by the proposed merger with Google and continue to focus on creating innovative technologies.”

Once upon a time Motorola used to be the number one manufacturer of mobile phones, as did another telecoms giant, Nokia. And like Nokia, Motorola this week has posted disappointing results for Q4. To help revive the fortunes of Motorola, they allied themselves to the Android operating system for their smartphone devices, with a degree of success. Whether Nokia can emulate that with their more recent tie-in with the Windows Phone OS remains to be seen. Either way, in light of the excellent results posted by Apple earlier this week, there is still a long way to go yet.

Nokia has released details of their earnings from Q4 2011, showing heavy losses of 1.07 billion Euro, contrasting to a profit of 745 million Euro in Q4 2010.

The overall number of Nokia smartphones also declined, with 19.6 million units sold during the last quarter of 2011, a decline in sales of 31 percent compared to the year before.

The positive aspect of the smartphone sales, though, has to be the number of Lumia devices sold, with Nokia stating that over 1 million devices have been sold to date.

Nokia also state their intention to introduce the Lumia range into new territories in the first half of 2012, including Latin America and China.

The number of Lumia devices sold is a good start for Nokia's relationship with the Windows Phone OS, but when compared to popular Android handsets and the Apple iPhone, there is still a long way to go.

The next important step for Nokia will be the follow up devices, and in particular the range that will be announced at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona.

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