Nokia will make streamlining the Symbian OS its top priority for 2010, and plans to halve the number of new smartphones it released in 2009. Read on for all the deets…

The Finnish company showed off a completely overhauled Symbian running on a number of concept devices at the company’s Capital Market Day event for investors this week.

The revamped OS, which Nokia will roll out next year, is leaner and considerably faster than the current version – up to three times faster, claims Nokia. It’s also multitouch-compatible on capacitive screens, addressing one of the biggest criticisms of Symbian at present.

Speaking at the event, Nokia product supremo Kai Öistämö believes the new-look Symbian will be a massive shot in the arm for Nokia. “A completely new visual architecture re-working of the UI will drastically reduce the complexity throughout and bring fresh appeal.”

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Read our full Nokia X6 review here

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Öistämö said Nokia had paid special attention to the number of screen taps required to perform key actions: “Two taps to get to music and video instead of eight, and email access in two steps instead of four,” he said by way of example. “The interface will be over three times faster than our current high-end devices in many areas.”

And it’s not just the Symbian OS Nokia plans to streamline in the next 12 months. The company says it will cut down the number of new smartphones it releases next year by “about half”. So it looks like we’ll be seeing fewer handsets like the Nokia E72 and Nokia N97 in the coming months, but the ones we do see should be pretty special.