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ACCESS has upgraded its NetFront Web browser for Symbian-based Series 60 smartphones to version 3.1 ($11.90). NetFront is one of the most popular embedded browsers on the market. The last update was back in February. And this update comes only a week after ACCESS upgraded the version of NetFront for UIQ 2.x interface smartphones, such as Sony Ericsson's P900 and P800 smartphones.

According to the company, the new version for Series 60 handsets delivers major improvements over the last edition. These enhancements include faster download transfer rates, a new download mechanism to enable large file downloads, as well as a new rendering mode, called small image mode, for speeding up the downloading & rendering of large websites. Users can also now select any picture & zoom it up to screen size.

As with previous editions, NetFront 3.1 for Series 60 smartphones continues to provide Smart-Fit Rendering, which intelligently renders Web pages to fit handset screen widths, eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling, and Rapid-Render, a technology that speeds the rendering of Web pages on mobile devices.

Series 60 Smartphones

Within the Symbian market segment, smartphones that use Nokia's Series 60 platform are by far the most widely deployed. Series 60 is used to create smartphones with large color screens, a user interface for single-handed navigation, and a suite of mobile friendly applications.

Five (Lenovo, Siemens, Samsung, Panasonic, Sendo and Nokia) licensees have announced devices with the Series 60 interface. In addition, more than 100 operators are now selling handsets based on the Series 60 Platform, including all the major GSM operators in the US & Canada. Later this year, the Series 60 Platform will also support CDMA, which should prove a boon in the United States where CDMA networks still dominate.

According to Gartner, in 2003, more than 6.67 million smartphones based on Symbian OS were shipped worldwide. While this is a drop in the bucket compared to the over 520 million mobile phones sold worldwide last year, the overall sales of smartphones are expected to grow exponentially over the next few years.

Not all Symbian applications run on all Symbian smartphones. For example, those written for another Symbian interface called UIQ won't run on Series 60 phones. There has been, however, more than 1,400 Series 60 based applications written. That is out of approximately 2,100 total Symbian-based applications.