Nokia introduced a new phone called the 500 today, which has one interesting trick up its sleeve: it's one of a very few unlocked phones supporting 3G on both AT&T's and T-Mobile's frequency bands. As an unlocked device, though, it isn't likely to sell many units here in the USA. The bigger news is that the world's biggest cell phone maker (yup, still) is changing the way it names products.
The new Nokia 500 lands smack in the middle of Nokia's new product line. It's a 1-Ghz, touch screen, slab-style phone running "Symbian Anna," the latest version of Symbian. It includes a 3.2-inch, 640-by-360 screen, a 5-megapixel camera, HSPA 14.4, Wi-Fi, and that AT&T/T-Mobile 3G band support.
The 500 will sell for 150 euros ($216) when it launches, which is pretty affordable for an unlocked 3G smartphone. It will be a good choice for AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers looking for a backup, replacement or prepaid phone, as long as they're willing to put up with the doomed Symbian OS.
What's more interesting to most Americans—especially the many people who owned Nokia phones years ago, or who are thinking of picking up Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone line next year—is that the phone is called the "500," which is the start of a new naming system for Nokia.
Nokia's new numbering system, according to an official Nokia blog, will run from 100 to 999. The first digit will reflect price and features: "A Nokia 900 would be top dog and a Nokia 100 is the most accessible option. The second two numbers gives each device a unique identifier within that point. So we can release 99 phones at the 500 point before we have to recycle any names, for example," Nokia said.
We've Got Nokia's Number
This is the fourth major naming system for Nokia in the past 10 years.
Starting in the mid-1990s, Nokia standardized on four-digit numbers for its phones. By the company's heyday at the turn of the century, the numbers were set. Nokia's 1000- and 2000-model phones were entry-level. The 3000 models were more creative, usually youth focused. The 5000 line started out mainstream, but then cycled through rugged, sports, and music phones. The 6000 models were business-oriented, 7000-models were either smartphones or fashion phones, 8000s were high-end devices, and 9000s were Communicators.
In 2005, Nokia started adding letters to things. Phones starting with "E" were "enterprise," while phones starting with "N" were multimedia. Two-digit N phones, like the N95 and N80, tended to be powerful multimedia smartphones. Three-digit N devices, like the N770 and N900, were experimental tablets.
Finally, in the past few years, Nokia entered a painfully confusing phase of assigning very different phones extremely similar product numbers. The X2 and X2-01 look nothing like each other; ditto for the C5 and C5-03, or the C2-01 and C2-02. Even here at PCMag, we've been having trouble keeping track of which Nokia phone looks like what.
Other companies have their own naming tics. Motorola's use of WRDS without VWLS is well known. Samsung tends to name phones with semi-random English words, leading to a game around here where we try to make up sentences consisting mostly of Samsung product names: "The rogue galaxy made an epic impression." RIM now has three "families," the Pearl, Curve, and Bold. Apple calls all of its phones "iPhone."
We'll see what Nokia numbers its first Windows Phone, which is supposed to come out later this year.