Retro Inspiration in Consumer Electronics

Fashion designers are known to draw inspirations from the past. For this season, polka dots are the rage bears testament that fashion is cyclical- what’s passé can be hot again.  Nokia Group seems to be taking a leaf from the fashion world and has started looking into its legacy for ideas.

Nokia announced the change in its naming conventions for its smartphones. Prefix denoting the product proposition, like N for its gaming centric phones, will be replaced with model numbers. The numbering convention is similar to what luxury car manufacturers are adopting. BMW’s entry executive range would be the 3 series and the 7 series reserved for its flagship cars. Interestingly, Nokia’s rivals have moved away from numbering systems with Apple’s iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and HTC Sensation being household names.

Still on the topic of history, Nokia also showed a new model, Nokia 500 (new numbering convention) that comes with three interchangeable covers. The trend of interchangeable covers were made popular by Nokia in the late 1990s.

These changes may seems arbitrary but it highlighted Nokia’s resolve in aligning the whole organisation to the new strategic direction on smartphones.

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