With Nokia’s resources reallocating towards Windows Phone 7 development, we’ve been wondering what, if anything, the company would do to boost Symbian sales in the platform’s ending years. Nokia’s made it abundantly clear that it won’t be abandoning the platform, but there’s a lot of play in-between continued software support and actively promoting new Symbian sales. One idea the company may be considering to draw some new attention to its smartphones is to position them as high-end luxury items. To that end, we’ve just gotten our first look at the Nokia Oro, a Symbian-powered smartphone adorned in leather and gold.

The Oro is clad on its back and sides with natural leather, with menu keys of sapphire (we assume synthetic sapphire glass rather than gem-quality) surrounded by gold trim. On top of all that, the screen is reportedly covered in damage-resistant Gorilla Glass. For all this, you’ll pay just north of $1600.

Underneath all the fancy trimmings, the Oro seems to be essentially a C7. From the display resolution, to the smartphone’s camera, the specs all line up nicely with the C7. Of course, an unlocked C7 will only set you back $300-$400, but you could always spend the difference on a really, really nice case. As far as we know, there are no plans to release a similarly pimped-out version of the Nokia Astound in the US.

Source: My Nokia Blog