The Nokia N9 smartphone was announced today, running on Nokia’s new Meego operating system, and to be available in two storage sizes and three colours.
The Nokia N9 is made of polycarbonate, a unibody design, with a 3.9 inch, WVGA (854×480) AMOLED screen, made of curved Gorilla glass.
There are no front-facing buttons on the Nokia N9, the interface is all touchscreen. Swiping from the edge of the touchscreen in any app and you’re taken to the home screen. The Nokia N9’s home screen itself is split up into three screen scenarios:
- Events – Facebook Wall posts, tweets, notifications, etc.
- Applications – all apps
- Open Applications – all open apps and recently used apps
The Nokia N9 includes access to free maps, downloadable over Wi-Fi, and including “Free turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation with voice guidance”, for over 90 countries.
Optional extras for the Nokia N9 will include:
- Nokia Play 360 wireless speaker
- Nokia Protective covers CC1020, CC553, CC3015
- NokiaWirelessMusic Receiver MD-310
- NokiaBluetoothStereo Headset BH-111
See the Nokia N9 in action in this short video from Nokia:
NFC
The Nokia N9 is also NFC-enabled, NFC standing for Near Field Communication. At its most functional, NFC enables purchases via the wave of the device over a sensor. No payment system has yet been set up to have this function for the N9 in Australia. What it will do is to enable N9 owners to share photos, videos, contacts, etc. by tapping another NFC-enabled device.
For a look at what ‘could be’ with the Nokia N9 and NFC, watch this video from the WIMA conference in Monaco, held in April this year:
Nokia N9 specifications
- Operating system: MeeGo (version 1.2 Harmattan)
- Networks: Pentaband WCDMA 850, 900, 1900, 1700, 2100, Quad band GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
- Speed: HSDPA Cat10: 14.4Mbps, HSUPA: Cat6 5.76Mbps
- Screen: 3.9 inch curved glass AMOLED touchscreen display
- Camera:: 8 megapixel auto focus camera with Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash and super wide 28mm lens; 2nd camera for video calls
- Video: MPEG-4 SP
720p @ 30fps - Processor: ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 1 Ghz, PowerVR SGX530
- Battery: 1450 mAh
- Talk time: GSM up to 11 hours; WCDMA up to 7 hours
- Standby time: GSM up to 380 hours; WCDMA up to 450 hours
- Video playback time: Up to 4.5 hours
- Music playback time: Up to 50 hours
- Maps: Free maps and walk & drive navigation, public transport routing
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, A-GPS, WLAN 802.11abgn, NFC, 3.5mm AV connector, micro USB connector, USB charging
- Storage: Two models, 16GB and 64GB
- RAM: 1024MB
- Colours: Black, cyan and magenta
- Dimensions: 116.45 mm x 61.2 mm x 7.6–12.1 mm (H x W x D)
- Weight: 135 grams
Nokia N9 price and release date
Unfortunately Nokia gave no real indication of pricing, release date or carriers. When pushed, a release time of “August” was mentioned by Nokia representatives, who also intimated that the Nokia N9 would be sold by multiple carriers.
The demonstration model at the press launch used Optus, so make of that what you will.
UPDATE: At launch in Australia the 16GB version of the Nokia N9 will be available in black and blue only, and in 64GB black only.
UPDATE – AUGUST 10, 2011: The Nokia N9 is to take an Australian ‘roadtrip’ for journalists next week, meaning that release is imminent, and that I’m able to have a look at the device.
| Nokia |