Hands-On with the Nokia N9

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by Clinton Jeff | on June 21st, 2011 | 10 comments

Yessiree. The Nokia N9 has finally arrived. An actual fully functional, working, near-final, proper unit of Nokia’s much anticipated MeeGo smartphone finally found its way to our grimy little hands and we’ve got a gorgeous long video to help you know more about it too.

Pictures? Who needs pictures.

Okay so, we’ll get pictures later, but here’s what we though from our hands-on with the MeeGo phone. For one thing, that AMOLED screen is gorgeous. There is no other word to describe it. Additionally, its very responsive, even to the slightest, off-bezel touch. And that’s just one part of the N9. Hells. Yeah.

The Software (UI):

The UI is basically Nokia’s Harmattan skin sitting on top of MeeGo 1.2, which itself is built around three main home views. There’s a central view which is your app launcher, and swipe to one side of it, you have your notifications, which can include phone calls, text messages, social network or even calendar alerts. Swipe to the other side, you have a live App switcher.

All these three views just take a flick of the finger in one direction, as they are navigational in a carousel. When the phone is ‘asleep’, double tapping the screen wakes it up. Unlocking it is actually very cool: You swipe in one direction, but right from the bezel. Very smart. You can also use this method of swiping to exit apps to the main home screen.

Animations are very fluid, and are done very well indeed. Navigating the UI on the N9 is a very natural feeling and is definitely a huge one-up on anything Nokia’s ever done in the past in terms of UI. Not too bad for an ol’ OMAP3630, eh?

The Hardware:

The N9 is made of a high grade polycarbonate plastic, which actually feels very solid, and durable. The sharp looks complete the whole aesthetics too, with the entire phone basically just built into a ‘shell‘. As a result, the battery isnt replaceable, and there is no microSD card slot. But there’s a MicroSIM slot (gasp they copied Apple!) but its hot-swappable.

Did we mention the screen? Yup its a ClearBlack Display (CBD) with a curved Gorilla Glass front, which all make the AMOLED screen really pop, with very true blacks, and great contrast and colors. The screen itself is worth writing a whole seperate post for, but we’re sure that the excellent responsiveness, and the intuitive UI do just as good a job for the overall… feeling of the Nokia N9 and its eye catching design.

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So all in all? We’re very impressed with what Nokia’s done here. I for one, definitely like what I saw. One cant help wondering why Nokia decided against using MeeGo as its long term primary smartphone OS, after playing around with the N9. After far too long, Nokia have a very very worthy flagship that’s pretty darn awesome all around.

Now if only it had a Xenon Flash.

I kid, I kid.

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Author Description

Clinton Jeff

Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile and mobile-related accessories. Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff