Crystal is the second half of ER6. These devices are known as communicators. They are based around the clamshell design similar to the Psion Series 5 line of devices. To start this introduction lets see how Symbian sums it up:

• sophistication for professional and power users
• keyboard operation, 640x200 screen, with soft keys
• graphical user interface evolved from previous keyboard communicators
• a rich, integrated, application suite

So what does this mean? It means that Crystal is the true sucessor to ER5, it is the OS that the next Psion Revo, 5(mx), Series 7, and notebook will run on. This is the future of power handhelds. Crystal has not been officially launched yet, and so official information is not yet easy to come by. However Crystal is due for release any day now, and it power the first ER6 device to be officially announced the Nokia 9120.

Crystal shares generic technology with Quartz, buts has its own overlieing GUI. In otherwords the guts of the OS (kernel etc.) are the same, whats running on top is different. It is this that makes ER6 so powerful.

We can see the gernic Crystal devices in this concept shot from Symbian. Notice how it is exactly the same idea as the Series 5 computers. (NB Crystal is on the right, Quartz on the left).

You can get an even better idea of the machine below from another concept picture:

This pciture shows the Nokia interpretation of the Reference Design (see implementations). Notice the buttons on the right used instead of a touch screen and the buttons along the top of the keyboard area, used instead of touck sensitive buttons on the screen (like the current Psion devices).  

OK so what does it do? The best way to answer this is to look throught the screenshots which give you some idea of what is included and what the functionality is. However as a brief overview (NB: these are the main apps on the Nokia Device, there is likely to be considerable change on others as to which is seen as important):

Word Processing [office](building on ER5 Word which is the most powerful PDA program of this type), improvements include built in Thesaurus, Saving not only in native format, but also in Word 95, 97 and 2000. Tighter integration with other applications so that you can select text in word and send it to E-mail, Fax or SMS. New fonts are also included (now about 5, and much I think easier to add). Still there from ER5 is template support, spell checking, oulining, word count etc etc. Of course it still allows embedded objects meaning tables and graphs can be embedded as sheet objects.

Spreadsheet [office](building on ER5 Sheet), now much more powerful, support for workbooks (with multiple worksheets and graphs within each file). Saving in Excel and native formats. More functions.

File Manager [office] used to navigate around your files, different concept to ER5, although partially dependent on implementation. See more about this in screenshot section.

Messaging - very, very poweful - allows sending of SMS, faxes and e-mail. Multiple accounts, support for IMAP, mutliple nested folders.

Telephone - again dependent on implementation, integrates tightly with contacts, and allows you to make phonecalls.

Contacts - a much more powerful version of ER5 contacts. Now supports multiple address books (and integration with your phone sim card). More fields for storing infromation (including picture fields).

Calendar - the renamed agenda, much the same (but then ER5 was always well ahead). Includes two new views. See screenshots for more.

Desk - like the Windows desktop allowing sticky notes and shortcuts to frequently used files.

Web - web browser, supports Java, fames etc.

WAP - Wap browser.

Extras - a listing of extra applications including converter (for conversion both financial and of measuring units), CBS, Clock (very good time/ alarm application), and other (see screenshots).

I hope this gives a good idea of what Crystal is. However information is relatively limited, and you will get a much better idea by looking at the Crystal screenshots. Below is a picture of the first announced Crystal devcie the Nokia 9120 Communicator.