By Andrew Lim on Friday, 30th April 2010

Apple’s iPhone hogs most of the app limelight but Nokia’s Symbian operating system also supports a variety of cool apps which deserve attention. We’ve put together a list of essential Symbian apps – apps that make us jump with joy every time we use them. The following apps will work on phones that run Symbian S60 3rd edition and certain other models (check on the apps’ sites). All of these services require a data connection so check with your network how much you’ll get charged to use them.

Opera Mini - Nokia’s web browsers are good but Opera Mini is better. If you want to navigate through various websites with relative speed then this is a must-have app. Opera Mini boasts a speed dial feature for quick access to favourite sites, a great ‘find in page’ function and it’s very easy to zoom in and out of pages. The Swedish made browser also lets you open tabs which we think is essential when you’re browsing the web on a mobile. [Opera Mini download link]

Google Maps – Never get lost again. Google Maps for mobile is invaluable if you want to navigate around unknown territory. It works on phones with and without GPS but if you do have GPS then you’ll get more accurate location data. The app works in a very similar way to the browser version and even includes Street View which allows you to see a street as if you were standing there yourself. [Google Maps download link]

Skype – We use Skype a lot at Recombu and the mobile app is really useful. Similar to the desktop version Skype for Symbian allows you to make and receive calls and send messages. The great thing about Symbian is that it allows you to multitask which means that you can have Skype running in the background and get notified if someone is trying to get in touch. [Skype download link]

Google Mail – Google Mail is a fantastic email service and the mobile app is great too. Google Mail for mobile allows you to send and receive emails, search through your entire inbox quickly and sort mail using labels. You can access Gmail through a phone’s browser but the app much better and offers more features. It’s great that you can read downloaded emails even when you don’t have a data connection, for example. [Google Mail download link]

Spotify – Before we tell you how amazing Spotify for Symbian is we must point out that you’ll need a £10/month premium account to use it. Spotify for mobile allows you to search and listen to music almost instantly via Wi-Fi or 3G, and you can temporarily download playlists for when you don’t have a data connection. It’s one of the best Symbian apps on offer and delivers a fantastic service. [Spotify download link]