Rumour: Nokia changing model naming scheme, will announce 12 megapixel camera phone at MWC

Mobile World Congress is less than a week away, so you’re excused if you don’t read anything after the period ending this sentence. Like any major press event, rumours fly out of every deep corner of the web just before it’s due to take place. Many are incorrect, few are right, but that’s only because they’re so vague. Today the French version of Tom’s Guide [Note: when the hell did they change their name?] brings us quite a few Nokia rumours.

They say Nokia is going to give up the 4 digit model number naming scheme we’ve all grown to hate. Did you see the 5230? It’s a cheaper version of the 5800, but with the same screen size of the 5530 and a 2 megapixel camera! Very few people will understand what I’ve just said. Nokia will switch to Cseries for the low end, Xseries for entertainment, Eseries for email/business, Nseries for high end devices, and Sseries for really high end devices that ship in limited quantities. I’m hoping the Sseries rumour is true, because I personally feel there is a growing space in the market for a device that is more than $500, but less than the $2000 starting price for a Vertu. Best materials, best technology, limited production run $1000 to $1200 phones are going to be the next big thing. You just wait and see.

Anyway, there’s more. The C5 will ship in June, it has GPS, no price. The 6700 Slide will be 140 EUR, have a 5 megapixel camera and come in 6 colors. The C3 will be Nokia’s first S40 QWERTY device in a long, long time, and it’s going to ship in July. The C5 is a better version of the C3, with a full keyboard [meaning the C3 may have 2 letters per key similar to the Nokia E55] and GPS.

Saving the best for last, the N8. It’s supposed to be Nokia’s first Symbian^3 device, first device with a 12 megapixel camera sensor, first device with HDMI video out, and first device with a 3.5 inch capacitive screen. That’s a lot of firsts, and usually the more outrageous the specification sheet, the less likely the rumour is to be true. If it does turn out to be true, then you can expect delay after delay after delay, and terribly buggy software. Remember the Nokia N95? First Nokia with GPS, 5 megapixel camera, hardware accelerated graphics, and a whole lot more. It was launched in limited quantity 6 months after it was announced and the first version of the firmware gave users a horrible experience. Here is hoping the N95 taught them a valuable lesson and the N8 will not be a repeat of the past.

Stay tuned, we’re going to be at Mobile World Congress soon enough, hell I leave on Saturday, so expect a lot of Nokia coverage!

[Via: The Nokia Blog]