Nokia N9 Release

The much rumoured Nokia N9 has finally been revealed. Nokia’s last major solo release before it pals up with Microsoft isn’t the token effort some might have predicted, though, with a number of striking design decisions and innovative features. Read on to find out more.



Colourful design
The first thing to note is the Nokia N9′s striking looks. Gone is the bulky physical Qwerty keyboard that looked set for the device not long ago to be replaced by a colourful, bold yet fairly slender touch-only unit.
As you can see, the N9′s shiny screen is encased in a brightly coloured shell. Think of it as a permanently attached and more extensive iPhone 4 bumper. It’s made of polycarbonate, which is the same colour throughout the shell’s thickness. This means that any surface damage will be far less noticeable than on previous shiny black devices.
That’s not the biggest design departure though – that has to be reserved for the total lack of any fascia buttons. There’s no home key, no back key, no menu key – nothing. In fact, the only physical buttons are for the volume and the camera, which are both tucked away on the right hand side of the device.

The Nokia N9 specs:

- 3.9-inch curved-glass AMOLED display, 854 x 480 resolution

- 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 OMAP3630 processor
- PowerVR SGX530 GPU
- 1GB RAM, 16/64 GB storage
- 8-megapixel camera, dual LED flash, 720p video
- NFC, Wi-Fi, GPS
- 1450 mAh battery
- 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6-12.1 mm, 135 grams
That’s a pretty potent package. While the single core CPU and PowerVR SGX530 GPU combo won’t be troubling the current leading Android devices (or the upcoming iPhone 5), it’s still a more than capable power unit that should sit in the region of such recent beauties as the HTC Incredible S and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.
Elsewhere the N9 is luxuriously equipped. How many phones offer the possibility of 64GB of in-built storage? We’ve been clamouring for Apple to do so for years now. Then there’s that 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, which might not sound like it matches the camera-focused N8 model, but it does offer an aperture of F2.2, which means it should be better for low-light shooting.
Also worthy of note is that 3.9-inch screen, which is a notable step up from the 3.5-inch Nokia N8. It continues Nokia’s use of AMOLED technology, which makes for superior contrast levels. Most noticeably, AMOLED screens handle blacks far better than their LCD counterparts.
MeeGo now
And so to the real talking point. Though you wouldn’t know it if you’d come to the N9 fresh at Nokia‘s announcement, the new handset runs on the MeeGo OS. That’s the same fledgling MeeGo that Nokia has all but written off in its deal with Microsoft to run Windows Phone 7 exclusively from next year.
This means that, no matter how impressive you find the N9, it’s unlikely to be particularly future-proof. Still, in the here and now it looks refreshingly intuitive and really quite accomplished.
It’s built around a three home-screen concept, with one for all your apps and functions, one for notifications and one for recently opened applications (perfect for multitasking). These can be flitted between with a lateral swipe from the screen’s edges. This is also how you return to the home screen from within an app, which is how Nokia has been able to ditch the home button. Check out how it works in the official video below.
Nokia’s swipe-based browsing solution looks to be an excellent refinement of the mobile UI experience. It’s a shame, in a way, that the N9 doesn’t represent the start of a new MeeGo handset line for Nokia, but don’t be surprised to see a fair few of the N9′s brightest elements crop up in some form in the first Nokia Windows Phone.