After the launch of the iPhone back in 2007, Nokia which is one of the largest mobile handset manufacturers in the world, has been having a pretty rough time.  Symbian OS, which has been powering the Finnish company’s handsets for quite a few years now, came under heavy criticism.

Earlier, the company tried to somehow adapt the non-touch Symbian OS with the S60v5 OS release. However, after heavy criticism the company went back to the drawing board and released Symbian^3. The new OS was much faster than its predecessor, but still lacked some basic functionalities and had an inconsistent UI. Nokia followed Symbian^3 with Symbian Anna, which brought some much needed changes including a faster browser, and more consistent UI.

Symbian Anna was  succeeded  by Belle, which brings a new notification bar, new keyboard, an  improved  camera UI and some minor UI tweaks. While Nokia has already released some Symbian Belle running handsets, the company has promised that it will update its older Symbian^3 handsets like the C7, N8 and the E7 to Belle as well.

The Belle update is scheduled to be released sometime before 2011 ends. While Nokia N8, C6-01 and E7 owners still need to wait patiently for the Belle update, curious C7 owners can enjoy the latest Symbian update on their handset by flashing a leaked Belle firmware for their handsets. C7 owners need to use the Phoenix tool to flash the leaked firmawre file on their handset.

Interested Nokia C7 owners can head over to this site for step by step instructions and download links.