Nokia Takes On Social Networking With C5 Smartphone

The Nokia C5, the first smartphone in Nokia's new C-Series of handhelds, is optimized for social networking and content sharing, the Finnish mobility giant said. The Nokia CF lets users connect with their most frequent contacts via Facebook integration into address books and contacts and home screen access to contacts. Facebook status updates and other social networking content is visible in the smartphone's contacts address book.

Additionally, the Nokia C5 wraps swift access to sites like Facebook and MySpace. It ties in the latest version of Ovi Maps, Nokia's swipe at Google Maps which offers free walking and driving navigation.

The Nokia C5 smartphone takes a candy bar form-factor with a standard numeric keypad and is based on Nokia's Symbian mobile operating system. It is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2010 and run around $180 before taxes and subsidies.

The smartphone also adds support for a host of email and instant messaging services, such as Nokia's Ovi Mail, Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail and Google Gmail, and Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger, respectively.

Additional features include HSPA connectivity for Web surfing, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 2 GB of microSD storage that's upgradable to 16 GB.

So far, U.S. availability hasn't been revealed. The Nokia C5 will hit first in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Nokia's social networking-focused C-Series is the latest line for Nokia, which is the global leader in mobile phone sales. The line comes as a host of other smartphone makers look to capitalize on social networking's hold on users. Competitors like HTC and Motorola, along with the Google Android operating system, have wrapped social networking functions into their smartphones to capture users.