Nokia X7 outed in Three video: 8-megapixel camera, new Symbian browser, Qwerty keypad that works in portrait!

Hold the phones, it looks like Nokia has managed to integrate a virtual Qwerty keyboard that (drumroll) works in portrait mode on the latest version of Symbian. I know, amazing right? And about time too.

Hopefully this means that we can Swype on the X7 in portait mode (i.e. the way it's meant to be used).

A video from Three UK shows off a Nokia X7 running a forthcoming new version of Symbian. You may remember that the X7 was one of the phones featured in the leaked Three line-up that appeared a month ago. This all but confirms that the gaming-centric Symbian phone is Three-bound.

The video was uploaded to YouTube over the weekend, but appears to have been made private.

We spotted posts over on The Nokia Blog and Engadget showing off the same X7 videos which have since been privated. However an intrepid YouTuber has re-uploaded the video which you can see below.

You can see the portrait Qwerty goodness at around the 1:04 mark as well as a few other nice things. Things like a new-look Symbian browser (up to three times faster, apparently), smoother scrolling between homescreens and a general tidy up of the Symbian UI.

All sounds good to us; this addresses a lot of the bad points of the Nokia N8. Namely that doing basic things like browsing the web could be a real test of patience.

The Nokia Blog also says that we'll be hearing some Symbian announcements tomorrow from Nokia itself. We're hoping that this new-look version of Symbian gets rolled out to existing Nokia phones like the N8 and E7.

The announcement is due to kick off at 10:00 Central European Time, aka 9:00 in UK time so we'll know for sure then.

We've contacted both Nokia and Three for further comment and are waiting to hear back.