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Nokia N9: first look.
Expected 2011.
Nokia's first MeeGo handset, the Nokia N9 is also probably Nokia's last MeeGo handsret.
A powerful and beautiful device to look at, the N9 took so long to develop that Nokia
shifted strategies in the meantime, leaving the MeeGo-powered N9 dangling as Nokia switched
to Windows.
This is the most powerful handset ever produced by Nokia. At its heart is a 1GHz ARM Cortex
A8 processor, on the front is a subtly curved 3.9" 854 x 480 pixel AMOLED display, and on
the back is an 8 megapixel camera. Unlike some preproduction MeeGo devices, the N9 lacks
a physical keyboard. In fact, the specifications are very similar to a high-end Android devicen
and it's probably only a matter of time until someone ports Android to the N9.
The operating system is MeeGo 1.2 "Harmattan", derived in part from Nokia's Maemo platform
that we last saw in the N900 almost two years ago. A huge amount of work has gone into the
new interface, and although it is very new it shares the Qt development platform with
Nokia's S60 devices, so application development should be easier. The catch? Well, S60 is
also being discontinued in favour of Windows, so developer enthusiasm is waning.
From what we have seen, the user interface looks great. MeeGo's developers have added
a lot of swipe controls to it, and cosmetically at least it looks very fresh. The display
has been designed for swipe usage, the slightly curved surface and deep black laminated screen
looks brilliant in this respect.
Bundled with the N9 is free turn-by-turn navigation plus an enhanced web browser and all the other
features that you would expect to find in a modern smartphone. The application library
is basically starting from zero through, so don't expect to see the choice that you have
with Android or the iPhone.
The 8 megapixel camera isn't quite up to the one found in the Nokia N8, but Nokia are generally
pretty good with cameras and the 720p video capture should appeal to people wanting to
upload to YouTube. We don't know if the N9 has a YouTube client though, but it's going
to be a while before it hits the market so it is certainly possible.
Underneath, the N9 is a pentaband 3G device with quad-band GSM supporting download speeds
of up to 14.4Mbps on HSDPA, making this very much a true world phone. WiFi connectivity
is also good with support for 802.11 a, b, g and n bands. There's 1GB of RAM plus 16GB
or 64GB of non-expandable storage, and a there's a large 1450 mAh battery that Nokia says will
give the N9 7 hours talktime and 18 days standby time, although how efficient MeeGo is in practice
remains to be seen.
We don't know exactly when the N9 will be available, Nokia say vaguely that it will
be sometime later this year. There's also no guidance on price, but we expect the N9
will be expensive. It's worth bearing in mind that although the N9 is a powerful handset,
it's only a single core device and competitors are pushing ahead with even higher resolution
screens than this. By the time it hits the market, rivals will be even more powerful
and Nokia's expected launch of Windows powered smartphones may well seriously impact market
acceptance.
The N9 does look great though, it is just such a shame that we have had to wait so long.