Like clockwork, Nokia announced the C5 today. It says a lot that the company used their press bulletin site, and not their official press site, to make the announcement. When that usually happens, the device is seen as something not too important to the company’s portfolio. Maybe there are more Cseries devices lined up, more impressive ones, that are yet to be announced? Here’s what we do know about the C5: 12.3 x 46 x 112 mm stainless steel body, 89.3 gram weight, 2.2 inch 320 x 240 pixel screen, 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack, GPS, 1050 mAh battery, quadband GSM/EDGE, dualband (900/2100 Mhz) HSPA, Symbian S60 3rd Edition.
All that for 135 EUR before taxes and subsidies, or roughly $185, and due to hit the market in Q2 of this year. The little boy in me would say “gee wiz, those specfications at that price is awesome!” But the cynical blogger in me is going “Nokia makes smartphone cheap, yay, I’m so excited. No really, I am. Now where’s the iPhone killa?”
Think of the C5 as something you’d buy for your mom, or something for your girlfriend. It can be their segue into smartphones. For emerging economies this is going to be someone’s first smartphone, and also the first device they’ll use to connect to the internet. Had those new internet users been reading IntoMobile, they would have known what the C5 looked like a month ago.
Update: Quick hands on video of the Nokia C5 courtesy of Symbian World: