Nokia Xseries and Cseries coming up, geeks hold breath

It was all about four-digit model numbers with Nokia in the beginning. Then N-Gage stepped in, with the Nseries and the Eseries following shortly after. Now two more letters are joining the party - Nokia has registered the Cseries and Xseries trademarks.

Both patents are quite general and cover phones, smartphones, accessories and replacement parts, which doesn't really tell us much about the devices that will inevitably be announced.

Usually Nokia separates its phones in four categories like so:

• Achieve - those are the Eseries
• Explore - the Nseries
• Live - fashion phones for people with active lifestyles
• Connect - easy to use, but not basic, good looking phone; emphasis on ways to connect to others

Now, here's what we're thinking: two categories that are don't yet have a series of their own and two new letters. Simple enough, but here's the tougher question - which is which?

C for example could stand for "classic", and classic phones more or less fit the description of the Connect category. There are other words that start with C of course but they are less likely.

"Computer" is another of those words and we do now that Nokia and Intel are cooking something up. Then again, they call the N97 a "mini multimedia computer" and the Maemo tablets seem to be part of the Nseries (e.g. N800). "Camera" also springs to mind but that too is Nseries territory.

That leaves Xseries for the Live category. Now, X could mean XpressMusic - those don't really fit the bill for a fashion phone but "active lifestyles" is pretty accurate.

Prism and Supernova phones are the more trendy type. The few L'Amour phones are a good match too, as are the 8-series phones - the Sirocco, Luna and the Artes. This we think is reasonable guess of what constitutes a "Live" phone and an Xseries phone too, if our wild guess turns out right.

There's always the possibility that the two new series wouldn't actually to fit into the current categories. One of them might just be here, because Nokia is running out of numbers in the Nseries as the three digit Nseries models is reserved for the Maemo tablets.