Nokia N9 also known as N9-00 or N9 Lankku
The Nokia N9 is a visitor from an alternate universe, where Nokia never ditched MeeGo and Symbian in favour of Windows Phone. The Nokia N9 certainly looks intriguing in the smooth, rounded press shots released by Nokia.
Nokia N9: Design & Build
The Nokia N9 has unlock, camera and volume buttons on the side, but no home button on the front. Instead, it invites you to swap between three home screens by swiping into the display from the bezel that surrounds it.
The lack of buttons on the front of the N9, and the curved convex 3.9-inch glass screen, do give the phone a sharp look -- at least based on the press shots we've seen. But much depends on how smooth the gestures are when we get the phone in our hands.
Nokia N9: Display
The Clear Black AMOLED display is truly a sight to behold, with stunning viewing angles, a curved Gorilla Glass front, and some pretty excellent (for AMOLED) performance out in the sunlight. We compared it side by side with a Super LCD-equipped Incredible S and the N9 more than held its own. The screen is easily one of this new phone's great strengths, though we'd argue the intuitive UI, responsiveness, and eye-catching industrial design are pretty high up on that list too.
Nokia N9: UI
The first home screen shows a list of events from your social networks, as well as text messages and missed calls. The second is a grid of rounded icons that look similar to those on the iPhone 4, which link to your apps. The third is a grid of large thumbnails showing what apps you currently have open, so you can multi-task and switch between them.
The Nokia N9 also has notifications on the lock screen that remind us of those announced by Apple for the next version of the iPhone's software, iOS 5. Your messages and missed calls appear on the lock screen, where you can swipe them to open the relevant app immediately.
Nokia N9: OS - MeeGo
Wwhen you're using an app a long, slow swipe from the right-hand side returns you to the grid of icons. Nokia also says a slow swipe up from the bottom of the screen reveals a shortcut bar with icons for calls, texts, the camera and maps. That sounds like a similar feature on the Palm Pre.
In our experience using similar gestures on the Pre, BlackBerry PlayBook and HP TouchPad, gestures like this take some time to get used to. But once you've got them firmly ensconced in your muscle memory, they're fast and intuitive.
Nokia N9: Camera
Based on our experience with the camera on the Nokia N8, we're looking forward to trying the Nokia N9's snapper. It's an 8-megapixel camera (down from the N8's 12) that shoots HD videos, but it's Nokia's grasp of optics that makes its cameras great. Hopefully the Carl Zeiss lens on the Nokia N9 won't let us down.
Nokia N9: Apps
We're always up for a fresh-baked new phone, but the fact that the Nokia N9 uses software that even Nokia has all but given up on is a major downer. Nokia says it will come pre-loaded with games like Angry Birds, but we think it's unlikely you'll have the option to download many more. Although the Nokia N9 will have an app store, there's very little motivation for developers to invest the hard work in creating apps for an OS that's already a thing of the past.
Conclusion:
Overall, it's hard to work out our opinion of the Nokia N9. The Finnish brand is making very little mention of the fact the phone is running MeeGo, as it seemingly doesn't want to crowd consumers' heads with multiple operating systems. The design is beautiful, despite feeling a little plasticky in the hand, as it rests very nicely in the palm and screen is both clear and not too large.
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