Some said that Symbian is dead but that certainly is not going to happen today. That is because Nokia has just unveiled the latest version of Symbian – nicknamed as “Belle” – together with three upcoming devices that will run on the operating system’s newest update right from the factory.

Symbian Belle brings along quite a number of new features and improvement to the long-running mobile operating system. This in include new widgets capabilities, additional homescreen, a pull-down notification tab, new apps and Near Field Communications (NFC) functionality. No exact release timeline was announced for Symbian Bella but Nokia did mentioned that the update will be made available to existing Symbian Anna devices in coming months.

Accompanying the unveiling of Symbian Bella today are three new devices, namely the Nokia 700, 701 and 600. Being the smallest of them, Nokia claims that the Nokia 700 is also the most compact touch monoblock smartphone in the market as it measures at 110 x 50.7 x 9.7 mm and weights at 96g.

That being said, Nokia 700 is actually equipped with pretty beefy hardware such as a 3.2-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display that is strengthen with Corning Gorilla Glass together with 1.0GHz processor, 2GB of user memory, 5-megapixels full focus camera with LED flash, built-in NFC capability and much more. In terms of battery life, the Nokia 700 is said to be able to last up to 7.3 hours talk-time and 465 hours on standby.

Meanwhile, the Nokia 701 is also powered by a 1.0GHz processor and also comes together with NFC capability as well as ClearBlack and Gorilla Glass on its display but apart from that, it have very little in common with the Nokia 700. The 701 is actually equipped with a number of more advanced hardware which include a new graphic co-processor, 3.5-inch IPS LCD display, 8-megapixel full focus camera with dual-LED flash as the main camera, a front-facing camera and 8GB of user memory. Its battery life is said to be up to 17 hours talktime and 550 hours on standby.

Last but not least on the list is the Nokia 600. Despite being the cheapest – in terms of price point – among all three new Symbian Belle-based devices, the Nokia 600 actually looks pretty capable according to its technical specifications which listed a 1.0GHz processor, 2GB internal memory, 5-megapixels full-focus camera with LED flash, 720p video recording capability, NFC capability and 3.2-inch nHD touch display.

In addition to its superbly loud built-in speaker which is rated at 106 phon, the Nokia 600 also comes with a built-in FM transmitter that enables it to transmit music through other radio and a built-in FM receiver that eliminates the need to use earphones in order to listen to radio station on the device. The Nokia 600′s battery life is rated at up to 15 hours of talktime and 550 hours in standby.

The Nokia 700 will carry a price tag of RM 1,160 (EUR 270) while Nokia 701 will go for RM 1,246 (EUR 290) as well as RM 774 (EUR 180) for Nokia 600. All three Symbian Belle-based devices are scheduled to be released into the market in the third quarter of 2011.