Right, and the "25" means a 2.5 litre engine (though they've started to break from this scheme recently), the "x" means four-wheel-drive and the "i" means "fuel injected". (Even though fuel injection is no longer a distinguishing feature they keep the "i" because it sounds cool).
There is, however, a limit to how much alphanumeric information one can generally keep track of. The 325xi is right on that limit. It's made easier for cars since we see hundreds of cars per day and they all proudly display their model name on the back whereas laptops hide theirs away in a corner. Also you've been able to buy a BMW 325i (+/- 5i) for well over thirty years whereas Compaq models change all the damn time.
To underline the "not for car geeks" point: Not only do I not know what kind of car the 325xi is (and I am from Bavaria, the home country of BMW), I also don't know what "2.5 litre engine" stands for (is that a lot? good? bad?), or what the hell is the point of "fuel injected". Don't all cars drive on fuel (except for the few exotic electric ones)?
Even though I am surrounded by cars, I never look at the model names.
Funny to think most people probably feel about computers the way I feel about cars. Although these days I don't know much about the internals of computers anymore, either. Mostly I care about "fast enough", "can run games/can't run games", "runs Linux", "noisy fan/not so noisy fan".
There is, however, a limit to how much alphanumeric information one can generally keep track of. The 325xi is right on that limit. It's made easier for cars since we see hundreds of cars per day and they all proudly display their model name on the back whereas laptops hide theirs away in a corner. Also you've been able to buy a BMW 325i (+/- 5i) for well over thirty years whereas Compaq models change all the damn time.