Cheap as candy
If 2009 was the year of the high-end smartphone, this year looks like erring more towards affordability. Just like the PC components business, handset makers seem to have a strategy of launching their eye-catching ‘hero' products first, then filling out their ranges at lower prices.
Nokia, which still faces a fight to fend-off smartphone competition from Apple, Android, etc, launched the N900 last year. With its QWERTY keyboard, OMAP 3430 SoC and ability to multi-task, it's effectively a mini computer. Today's launch - the C5 - is unlikely to ever be described in the same way.
This one's Symbian-based, is a candybar chassis with regular keypad and 2.2 inch display, has a 3.2 megapixel camera and a 2GB memory card. With such a relatively barebone spec, you'd expect it to be a fair bit cheaper and the C5 doesn't disappoint in that respect - weighing in at €135.
The default positioning for lower-end smartphones is generally as social networking specialist devices, and Nokia makes no attempt to buck that trend here. The C5 will launch in ‘select markets' sometime in Q2.
Incidentally, Telecoms Korea has revealed that LG will be launching a Snapdragon based 3.5 inch touchscreen phone called Maxx (LG9400) in Korea, but reckons it's not a smartphone. If the C5 is a smartphone then this one certainly is. As the majority of new launches are dubbed ‘smart' the term is starting to lose meaning.
