One of Nokia’s latest product series, the C series, offers a surprisingly full-featured budget handset in the C5. Among other features normally found in more expensive Smartphones you get the Symbian Series 60 operating system.

Considering its features, it is a highly affordable handset with a target price of less than $200 (potential subsidies not included). With the Nokia C5 you get a lot of bang for the buck at this price, and no doubt the Symbian S60 mobile OS is the main attraction.

This makes it a true smartphone in an inexpensive package – thanks to Symbian you get the full Ovi package including Ovi Maps, which now supports sharing your location via Facebook. On top of that, the usual social media fluff is of course included.

Just like Nokia’s X-series, the ideas behind the model names are borrowing from the automotive industry. This also means there will be one to C5 a year, with the same basic idea and pricing model, but with updated technology. It is Nokia’s way of both reducing the number of models and to reduce all the usual model name confusion.

As opposed to the X series – a renewal of the XpressMusic series – the C series aims at the social media-intensive consumer base, which is huge nowadays. It’s a great thing that smartphones are finding their way down into the budget categories.