Nokia has announced a new Symbian smartphone today: the Nokia 500.
It’s a touchscreen device with a 1GHz processor running the Symbian Anna operating system. On the front is a 3.2-inch capacitive touch display, while the back has a 5-megapixel camera... and a changeable back cover. As well as having a name that doesn’t fit with the previous E, N, C and X prefixes, the Nokia 500 is also notable for weighing just 93g – less than any other Symbian^3 device.
Nokia says its changing its naming convention because its previous classifications - E-series for business, X-series for entertainment - didn’t match what people were actually doing with their phones. In addition, price differences between different series - comparing a C7 with an E7, for example - didn’t always make sense to consumers.
The new model numbering scheme uses a similar basis to the original 4-digit Nokia model numbers. The first digit refers to the price point (and the amount of features), from 1 through to 9. The next two digits are simply a unique model number. So the Nokia 500 is the first of Nokia’s 5-series phones - mid-price and/or mid-spec.
[Nokia Conversations blog]