Nokia attempts to explain numbering

FINNISH PHONE MAKER Nokia has made a desperate attempt to sell more phones by announcing on its blog that its handsets are in fact versatile.

The manufacturer has now decided to use numbers instead of letters to classify its handsets, after apparently discovering its Eseries business phones are being used by consumers as well. This follows the launch of the Nokia 500, a low cost Symbian smartphone.

Confused? Nokia seems to be. "Don't tell us what to do with our phones," the Finnish manufacturer says challengingly on its blog. "Most phones nowadays have very adaptable hardware and software. You can do whatever you like with it. Perhaps you use your Eseries business smartphone mainly for games or IM-ing friends?"

"Maybe you're crunching numbers on a spreadsheet using an entertainment-focused Nokia X7? That's up to you - the classifications were indicators, but often, they didn't match-up to what people were actually doing with their phones."

And although Nokia admits that letters are confusing, apparently numbers are not. "People are fine with numbers," the blog says. "People understand the logic behind 'the bigger the number, the more you get' philosophy."

Apparently, the first number is indicative of the relative price and feature point, so a Nokia 900 would be top dog and a Nokia 100 is the cheap as chips option. The second two numbers gives each device a unique identifier within that price range. This is useful to Nokia as it can release 99 phones in the 500 range before it will have to recycle any names.

And frankly, Nokia is keen it add, it likes numbers. However, this announcement doesn't mean the manufacturer is preparing to saturate the market with new phones. Aside from the Nokia 500, there aren't any other products as yet and the numbers are for "illustrative purposes only". µ