Nokia smartphones may get new identity this year

Nokia might be looking for a massive shakeup in its smartphone portfolio. And this shakeup may involve changes in how Nokia smartphones are named. A recent report suggested HMD Global is working on a new phone called Nokia G10 and it may arrive soon in Russia. Now, G10 comes as an entirely different name for a Nokia smartphone because ever since HMD Global took over Nokia’s phone business, it has followed the number pattern to name smartphones, such as Nokia 2.4, Nokia 3.4 among several others. And this convention may soon become a thing of the past.

According to a tip posted on the Nokia forum on China’s Baidu, the English translation of which was shared on Twitter by @nokibar, HMD Global is ditching the number-based nomenclature practice for Nokia smartphones by removing the dot. This will be replaced by a new naming system where numbers will be more like commonly-used names, such as S20, P40, or X50 from Samsung, Huawei, and Realme. The Nokia G10 smartphone seems to be the first of many such phones that are rumoured to arrive later this year.

Nokia’s existing naming system for smartphones involves two digits separated by a dot where the first one represents the phone series while the latter denotes the generation. For example, the latest Nokia 5.4 is the fourth generation of the Nokia 5.X series of phones. The digit denoting the generation does not follow the number sequence on certain phones, such as Nokia 3.4, which is the third and not the fourth generation of the Nokia 3.X series. And I do not find this system bad at all. In fact, it is unique because every other smartphone company is using a combination of letters and numbers for their phones and utterly simple to tell what phone belongs to what generation.

With the new G10 — if that is going to be the final name for the upcoming handset from HMD Global, Nokia phones will begin following the herd. Much like Samsung that has A-series, F-series, M-series, and S-series for Galaxy phones, Nokia will too have names such as G10, G20, so forth and so on. But the clash here could be with Motorola that has the Moto G range. Motorola’s Moto G phones are very popular and the company is continuing with the naming scheme for future phones. Nokia may not have an exact idea of confusing customers with the G letter for phones, it is definitely thinking of a rejig to improve sales. Moreover, the G in the G10 could represent Nokia’s association with Google more clearly. HMD Global has repeatedly emphasised how important Android One is for Nokia phones and it maybe now wants that to reflect in the phone’s name, as well. India Today