Nokia Smartphones Get New Names

There's been quite a few Nokia smartphones being released to date, but the company will now cut down to a select few in four different series.

In conjunction with the announcement of the Nokia C5, Nokia clarified its new naming convention across its smartphone portfolio. Moving forward, there'll be four smartphone brands, including Nokia Cseries, Xseries, Eseries and Nseries. Within each series of devices, there'll be a new range of numbers from 1 to 9, each signifying the range of functionality on offer, and the approximate prices of the devices - with 9 representing the highest end of devices.

The Nokia X3 and X6 were the first phones to use the new naming convention, followed by today's announcement of the Nokia C5. In other words, these three phones are mid-range devices within the respective series. Upcoming Eseries and Nseries smartphones will also be named based on the new naming convention, though specific announcements have not been made.

Nseries

Nseries will remain the flagship series and should offer the most advanced range of products. To date, Nseries has offered N9x, N8x and N7x devices representing mobile computing, camera & gaming and mid-range multimedia smartphones, respectively. AT& T has subsidized N7x devices in the U.S., and it'll be interesting to see whether AT& T will pick up the new breed of Nseries devices now that Nokia is cutting down on the amount of devices to make sure that a select few reach a broader audience. An all-touch phone powered by Symbian^3 is expected to be released in this line later this year.

Xseries

Xseries focuses on social entertainment, meaning that it blends social networking and music playback capabilities. A high-end phone in this range is expected to be released later this year, more specifically a QWERTY slider powered by Symbian^3.

Eseries

Eseries will remain focused on productivity and business. The next big thing in the Eseries is expected to be a slab QWERTY phone powered by a ramped up S60 3rd Edition, featuring a design that'll make images of both BlackBerry and Palm OS smartphones pop up in your mind.

Cseries

Lastly, the new Cseries represents the core range of smartphones by Nokia. The new Nokia C5 will be the first of this kind, powered by a ramped up S60 3rd Edition, offering a host of messaging and social networking features. The Nokia C5 will for instance include a new phonebook where you can see your friends' status updates directly from Facebook.