Nokia N9: The first and last Meego phone

The brand new Nokia N9, on display at the GITEX Technology Week, which has just wrapped up in Dubai, is one of the best looking smartphones I’ve ever seen; it has a gorgeous screen that should make the competition sit up and take notice.

By Magnus Nystedt (TECH TALK)

Published: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 10:42 PM

Last updated: Tue 7 Apr 2015, 8:03 AM

It has some of the most interesting new solutions for a touch user interface you can find today and it feels great to hold in my hands. Sad then, that it’s the first and last Meego smartphone from the Finnish tech giant, as it takes at least some of the interest from this clever and beautiful device.

Nokia’s designers have done a remarkable job with fitting the beautiful 3.9-inch (480x854 pixels) display into the polycarbonate body. The body is made from one solid piece and it has colour throughout the body, not just on the surface. All the components are placed into the body and the display is put on top sealing the N9 tightly.

Inside there’s a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, and 8-megapixel camera with flash and Carl Zeiss lens. There’s a 16GB and a 64GB model but no memory expansion. Nokia has followed Apple and gone with a MicroSIM card instead of a regular SIM card, something that shouldn’t really cause any problem now, with most if not all carriers offering the smaller SIM cards.

Besides the physical design most of the innovation in the N9 lies in the Meego operating system and especially its interface. Nokia says that anything you want to do with this smartphone you just “swipe away.” This means that you swipe from the edges of the display into the middle to perform certain basic functions. Switching between apps, going to one of the three home screens, etc. is all a swipe away. This is something we’ve seen on RIM’s Playbook before and it’s a great way, I think, to take advantage of a touch display. In fact, there is no physical button at all on the front of the N9.

Meego seems to run fast on the N9, it multitasks well and it’s easy to get connected to email, social media networks and the like. Since I live in Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. I think Nokia could have enhanced the support for those a bit, especially in the Mail app, but for most users that’s not too much of an issue. It should be pointed out that even though this may be the end of the line for Nokia Meego smartphones the company has said it will support the N9 and Meego through 2015 with software and security updates.

The N9 is one of the first smartphones in our market that supports NFC (Near Field Communication), which will be used for electronic payments and more when there’s support for it in shops. NFC is something that is set to revolutionise many areas of our lives but for now you can pretty much only use it to partner your N9 with speakers and Bluetooth headsets from Nokia. NFC is clever and exciting but can’t be used for much just yet.

Nokia N9 is in stores now for Dh2,349 (16GB model) and if you don’t have a problem with this being the last of its kind, then it’s a great smartphone.

· Magnus Nystedt talks and writes about technology as much as he can. Follow him on Twitter as @mnystedt for the latest on consumer technology in the Middle East.