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Nokia N9 video demo, first impressions

So now it’s clear why Nokia went for WP7 instead of Android — because they’re still banking on the Meego OS and the Nokia N9 is a testament that they can still kick ass.

The Nokia N9 is an impressive handset — both inside and out. The design is similar to what they did with the Nokia N8 but this time, there are no buttons on the screen. The AMOLED display is brilliant and the 3.9-inch glass somewhat curves towards the edge to give it a continuous feel.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

The unibody is made up of polycarbonate which makes it light but tough at the same time. The material is already colored from production so it’s not just coated by inherent to the body (if you scratch it, the inherent color remains). You still feel that heft, probably due to the massive glass display and it’s relatively thin too — starts at 7.6 on the edges going to 12.1mm in the center.

The specs is the best one Nokia has pushed out their doors:

Nokia N9
3.9-inch AMOLED screen @ 854×480 pixels
ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 1.0 GHz
PowerVR SGX530
1024MB RAM
16GB and 64GB internal storage
Bluetooth 2.1
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSDPA 14.4Mbps
Near Field Communication (NFC)
8MP autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss optics (f/2.2 aperture)
720p HD video recording @ 30fps with stereo sound
2 x LED flash
2nd front-facing camera for video calls
1450mAh battery
Meego 1.2 Harmattan

The Meego 1.2 OS has been re-built to give it a fresh UI. I tried it on the N900 before and didn’t liked it very much. However, the Meego 1.2 OS on the Nokia N9 showed a whole lot of improvements. With the ARM Cortex-A8 processor and generous 1GB of internal RAM, the UI is very snappy and has a lot of tricks and nice, smooth transition effects up its sleeve.

In it’s true multi-tasking capability, you can switch between applications in a single swipe or load pages and pages on the browser at the background while doing something else. You can download thousands of apps and games straight from Ovi store and use them with the N9.

The Near Field Communication (NFC) works flawlessly when we tested it out with Nokia’s portable speakers and headsets (both have NFC support as well) so you ca use the technology right off the bat.

The handset comes in 3 colors — black, blue and pink. One thing that people might find as a bit of a disadvantage is that the 1450mAh Li-Ion battery is built-in and not user-replaceable, just like what they did with the N8.

Nokia has not specified the exact date nor the suggested retail price but promises the N9 will be out before end of the year. I’m guessing it will be the same SRP as the N90 when it first came out or probably near the 23k price of the N8.

Update: A Nokia rep indicated in one of the interviews after the event that the Nokia N9 will have a suggested retail price of $660 (Php29k) for the 16GB and $749 (Php33k) for the 64GB.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

119 Responses

  1. Avatar for ronald ronald says:

    I bought mine yesterday in sm city annex bldg. I got the white 64GB for P27,700.

  2. Avatar for Kathy Kathy says:

    Gotta have this for Christmas. ;D

  3. Avatar for laine laine says:

    haha ang pinapangarap kong phone n9 hehe

  4. Avatar for Zeus Zeus says:

    finally appearing on nokia philippines
    http://www.nokia.com.ph/find-products/products/nokia-n9

    release date not yet announced.

  5. Avatar for Edivaldo Edivaldo says:

    where i can buy in the philippines??

  6. Avatar for sgt rave sgt rave says:

    1gb ram 1gb power whew 100 apps running at the same time whew whew whew…

    pricey hahaha
    still dunno what to buy

  7. Avatar for jaja,,,,,, jaja,,,,,, says:

    how mmuch is nokia n9?

  8. Avatar for rainbow_brite rainbow_brite says:

    and it doesn’t come in ‘menstrual red’ or ‘phlegm yellow-green-grey spot’ color. :(

  9. Avatar for hater! hater! says:

    and has only 8mp!

  10. Avatar for superboink16 superboink16 says:

    it doesn’t have a radio too.

  11. Avatar for jas jas says:

    why does this phone have no micro sd slot? Dang!

  12. Avatar for maecel maecel says:

    hi, just wanna know ,when the nokia n9 release in philippines? how much ?

  13. Avatar for FrostyM FrostyM says:

    If Nokia N9 will release soon! i will buy it for sure! keep going Nokia!

    I’m not fanboy i just want to buy a smartphone that i choose. best quality and best performance.

  14. Avatar for FrostyM FrostyM says:

    Who said this smart phone is useless and it can beat by SGS2. no wonder why these people doesn’t know Nokia. the specs of Nokia N9 is delicious it has a 1GHz. TI OMAP3630 CPU matched with PowerVRSGX530 GPU and 1GB of RAM, powers the platform. On the back, there is an 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss wide-angly auto-focus camera capable of capturing 720p videos. not just 720p look at the quality of the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZCOn_1KdF0&feature=player_embedded it’s like 1080p recording! this is insane! and watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxj_GhZ3Js the camera UI. is Perfect!

  15. Avatar for Blog Ng Ina Mo Blog Ng Ina Mo says:

    It’s just a phone. Get a life, people.

  16. Avatar for goodha goodha says:

    as much for the drools over this phone, sad to say….
    http://blog.gsmarena.com/nokia-will-not-return-to-meego-even-if-n9-turns-out-to-be-a-hit-says-stephen-elop/

  17. Avatar for russ russ says:

    this is my next phone, the Blue one..im so AWED!! video pa lng ah..haha

  18. Avatar for turboglendz turboglendz says:

    To all Nokia haters out there, please give credit where it is due. GSMarena and Engadget has nothing but praises for this phone. And the one saying that SE phones have better image sensors than Nokia? Can you please provide the source of that nonsense? There was even a blind test in GSMarena where the N8 beat a dedicated digicam – a Sony Cybershot. I personally did not like the 5800 but Nokia is learning from its mistakes.

    • Avatar for slglory slglory says:

      Critics of Nokia are not haters, they are even the ones urging them to innovate and move up against the competition. The N9 is a doubtful release on brink of WP-Nokia thing. I owned a dozen of Nokia phone, but went disappointed when Nokia seemed stop innovating itself. It started with the N80.

      http://www.gsmarena.com/3mp_test_nokia_n80_se_k800-review-79.php

      —-

      For your query “the source of this nonsense” is this :)

      N8 Sensor size = 1/1.9″

      http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-large-is-the-nokia-n8-12-megapixel-large-image-sensor/

      SE have been shipping 1/2.5″ on 2009. Some Nokia claims on their brochures that I saw was way above the roof in my opinion.

      SE have Satio (2009). Compared with N8 (2010)

      http://zomgitscj.com/2010/10/20/nokia-n8-vs-sony-ericsson-satio-the-12-megapixel-xenon-flash-camera-showdown/

      Not bad for a phone a year older than them. :)

      You are referring to the Blind test are you?

      Lets put the the credibility of it this way. Why did they choose to compare it to a 10 megapixel younger camera. They didn’t site any reason for that except for their excuse…

      “Since the Sony HX5v is a 10 megapixel camera, we’ve downsized all images to 10 megapixels just for this test.”

      Why not test it with a 12MP Sony one? Downsizing was an excuse. And for a 200 dollar camera it HX5 isnt bad. It can shoot wide angle (25 mm lens), it can do panorama seamlessly, 1080i AVCHD Movie, full HD, HDMI, DVD compatible, MP4, HDR, ISO 3200, antimotion blur on handheld etc….etc. surprisingly those features seems to be buried by the review.

      Also their long reason on page 2 on why they didn’t include SE Satio (2009 phone) on the test is eyebrow raising. Yet they compare they have done a review between Satio (2009 phone) and Pixion12 (2009 phone):

      “Plus, if you’ve read our Satio vs. Pixon12 shootout, you’d know that the Pixon12 is at least as good as or even better shooter than the Satio.”

      Inconsistent.

      Satio scored 11 and and Pixion scored 9 on their review. Plus both were released 2009 a year behind Nokia. It leads me with doubts: Was it a paid review?

    • Avatar for b0tczp b0tczp says:

      Goodness gracious slglory. I’m not Nokia fan. You’re just 2 f*ckin stupid to understand how digital cameras work.

    • Avatar for sloman sloman says:

      to slglory,

      Ang talino mo. Obviously SE ang phone mo. SE ang basura. Ang papanget ng SE phones. Walang kwenta.

  19. Avatar for damo damo says:

    help me decide pls..planning to buy a phone..
    pero na.lilito ako..iphone 4/5/4s or nokia n9?
    may ipad na ako madaming apps kaso nd ko naman
    masyado ginagamit.minsan nkakatamad na…should i go for nokia n9.?
    or iphone with the upcoming iOS 5?
    thanks in advance.. :D

    • Avatar for No-Nokia No-Nokia says:

      Its nothing but a dismal phone that will run on a dead end OS. Nokia already confirmed they will abandon Meego running on this “beard shaver” looking junk piece…

      http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Nokia+CEO+Stephen+Elop+rules+out+possible+comeback+of+MeeGo/1135267179932

      Nokia have confirmed plans to lay off 1,400 jobs in its main office in Finland mainly to make way for a WP. This will leave the doubts on N9s future development…

      http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Nokia+confirms+plans+to+cut+1400+jobs+in+Finland/1135267111758

      QT environment will be ruled out. Nokia claimed this phone would be a testbed for WP7, (WTF?)whats the point QT applications when you cant allow them to migrate to WP? Are you willing to own a “lab rat, test-bed” phone? Nokia is even unsure whether there would be further development for N9.

      “In Elop’s (Nokia CEO) words, there is no returning to MeeGo, even if the N9 turns out to be a hit.”

      “N9′s strange release is actually a deliberate move by Microsoft-via-Nokia to torpedo the prospects of MeeGo”

      Do yourself a favor and get yourself a phone with a well developed background. I wouldn’t recommend you any, all I want is for you to completely avoid this device.

    • Avatar for damo damo says:

      thank you for your opinion/advice..
      I’m still at a “road” with two paths..
      one going to the iphone the other going to nokia n9…haha.. :D
      God bless us all!

  20. Avatar for Lankku Lankku says:

    Nokia just leaked the Windows Phone brother of the N9. Here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/23/nokias-first-windows-phone-images-and-video/

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