Nokia N9

Nokia N9

Nokia N9   
Nokia today started shipping the Nokia N9 with a 3.9" AMOLED display, an 8 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss, NFC built-in and comes in three colors. Here is more info:

The Nokia N9 introduces an innovative new design where the home key is replaced by a simple gesture: a swipe. Whenever you're in an application, swiping from the edge of the display takes you home.

The three home views of the user interface are designed to give fast access to the most important things people do with a phone: using apps, staying up to date with notifications and social networks, and switching between activities.

The industrial design of the Nokia N9 is an example of extreme product making and craft. The body is precision-machined from a single piece of polycarbonate and flows seamlessly into curved glass. The laminated deep black display means that the user interface just floats on the surface of the product.

The 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss autofocus sensor, wide-angle lens, HD-quality video capture and large lens aperture enable great camera performance even in lowlighting conditions. This makes the Nokia N9 one of the best camera-phones ever produced.

The Nokia N9 features free turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation with voice guidance in Maps. With the new dedicated Drive app, you can get in your car and start navigating to your destination right away.

You can watch videos in true 16:9 widescreen format. And because the Nokia N9 is also the world's first smartphone with Dolby Digital Plus decoding and Dolby Headphone post-processing technology, you get a surround sound experience with any set of headphones.

Fitted with the latest in wireless technology, Near Field Communication (NFC), the Nokia N9 allows you to easily share images and videos between devices by touching them together. Pair it with Bluetooth accessories like the new NFC-enabled Nokia Play 360? wireless music speaker only once, and you get a great surround sound music experience with just a tap.

Colors and Memory

The Nokia N9 will be available in three colors - black, cyan, and magenta with storage options to accommodate plenty of content: 16GB and 64GB. The Nokia N9 is scheduled to be in stores later this year, with availability and local pricing to be announced closer to the sales start.

The estimated retail price of the Nokia N9 16GB and 64GB is approximately EUR 480 and EUR 560 before applicable taxes or subsidies, with pricing and availability varying from region to region and operator to operator.

The Nokia N9 is Nokia's last hurrah before they make the switch to being a Windows Phone manufacturer. It runs their customized version of the MeeGo OS that's based on Linux, and it's a thoroughly modern and beautifully designed touch-based OS. It's fast, intuitive and makes excellent use of gestures. Case in point: double tap the sleeping phone's screen to wake it up, then swipe up to unlock. Swipe down or to the right to close an app and return to the home screen. Swipe across the home screens to see the notification and social networking pane, the app drawer and thumbnails of all running apps.
The N9 has a 3.9" AMOLED display with anti-glare technology and Nokia's black technology. Blacks are deep, colors are vivid and glare is indeed less of an issue vs. most touch screen phones. It's 854 x 480 pixels with Gorilla Glass, an accelerometer and an ambient light sensor. The phone runs on a 1GHz single core OMAP CPU, and though that's not cutting edge, the phone is generally very quick.

The design is minimalist elegance and unique. The Nokia Lumia 800 inherits the design, and that's a good thing. The unibody casing is polycarbonate which is durable and won't show scratches as discolorations. It feels wonderful in the hand and is very slim. The phone is about the same size as the iPhone 4S, despite the larger display

This is a pentaband 3G phone with HSPA+ 14.4, and that means it will work on T-Mobile and AT&T as well as overseas. It's sold unlocked but you'll have to get it from importers here in the US since Nokia isn't selling it directly. Like the iPhone, it uses a micro SIM. The bad news? It goes for around $700 and Nokia is only making 90,000 or so. The even worse news? This is their first and last MeeGo Harmattan smartphone. It's a dead end. There are third party apps on the Ovi Store on the device, but I wouldn't expect the selection to grow much from where it is today.

The Nokia N9 has an excellent 8 megapixel rear main camera with a dual LED flash. It can shoot sharp 720p video and it takes photos that are as good as the top 8 megapixel camera phones on the market. It has the usual WiFi, Bluetooth and a GPS plus maps. The phone has 16 gigs of internal storage (Nokia says there's a 64 gig version as well) and no expansion slot.

Conclusion

We love almost everything about the Nokia N9, and that bodes well for the Nokia Lumia 800 Windows phone that uses nearly identical hardware. We'd give the N9 a higher start rating, but the high price, extremely limited availability and Nokia's statement that they won't be developing MeeGo anymore make this phone more of a collector's device than an everyday higher end purchase.

Price: Varies depending on store or importer, runs from $679-$799

Size: 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6-12.1 mm

Weight (with battery): 135 g

Volume: 76 cc

Memory

Internal memory: 16 GB or 64 GB

Use as USB mass memory device for storing photos, documents and more

Battery

Performance

Talk-time (maximum):

GSM 11 hours

WCDMA (3G) 6.5 hours

Standby time (maximum):

GSM 340 hours

WCDMA (3G) 420 hours

Video playback time (720P) 5 hours

Music playback time 50 hours

Web browsing (maximum):

WLAN 6.5 hours

HSDPA (3G) 5 hours

Communications
Email and messaging
Easy-to-use email client with attachment support for images, videos, music and documents .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .odt, .ods, .odp, .pdf
HTML support for email
Email client can combine multiple accounts into one easy-to manage inbox
Easy setup for POP3, IMAP and Mail for Exchange services
Multiple accounts per user supported
Chat instant messaging support: Facebook, Skype, Gtalk, and services using sip
Easy to move between multiple live conversations on open applications view
Unified MMS/SMS editor
Conversational view for SMS
Push email
Messages notifications shown in the event view
Call management
Contacts: advanced contacts with support for multiple phone and email details per entry with personal thumbnail pictures
Notifications of missed calls shown on standby-screen, lock screen and events view
Contacts application combines phone and online contacts together, such as Skype and Facebook. Automatic and manual contact merging.
Conference calling
Integrated handsfree speaker

Sharing and internet

Browsing and internet
Full web browsing of real web pages
Fast and highly responsive browser based on Webkit2 technology
Multiple websites can be viewed in the live multitasking view
Full browsing history
Wide HTML5 support offers access to rich web applications and fast video playback
Supported markup languages: HTML5, CSS 3, XHTML
Supported protocols: HTTP v1.1
TCP/IP support
JavaScript support
Web search integrated to browser
Auto-completer for fast lookups
Dynamic top sites page for fast access to favourite web sites
Pinch gesture and double tap zooming
RSS reader
Support for streaming video
Unified notifcations for Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds in the Events view
Social networking profiles and status updates merged into phone contacts
Social networking events visible in phone calendar