Symbian OS gives a wide range of personal information management (PIM) features such as contact and calendar. It also allows third party applications to be installed. The OS can be tailored to the individual needs depending upon the handset and personal needs. It is available on the smart phones and PDAs.The Symbian OS is as good as the handset. As an example, the Symbian OS is easy to use on the Nokia 6300 handset which comes with a keyboard whereas the OS leaves a lot to be desired on candy style phones such as Nokia 6682 handset.

The OS performance depends therefore largely on the type of hardware being used.The Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents are supported by the OS but the extent of editing or even the ability to create a document depends largely on the hardware being used. A few handsets allow the documents to be created and also edited to a limited extent while the others do not allow editing of the documents.

The Symbian OS is a good platform for messaging and e-mail. It is able to support the PO3, IMAP4 and Webmail account types. Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange are also supported by this OS making it a popular OS with business people.
OS is able to support audio and video playback and also supports recording. Again, the efficacy of the system is dependant upon the hardware used in the handset.

Majority of the handsets are able to playback MP3 files and MPEG files using the RealPlayer. There are other handsets where you will not be able to record live audio, which is a drawback.

The number of third party software and application options available for Symbian OS is less when compared to the other OS for handsets such as Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc. though the content that is available is wide and is able to cater to almost all the requirements.

Symbian is not very popular in US as an OS for smart phones and that is a major deterrent against it.Summing up, if the hardware is new the Symbian OS is one of the greatest OS to have.