Nokia N9 review

It’s taken ages for Nokia’s MeeGo-packing N9 to make its way into our top secret labs (the N9 moniker was first applied to early E7 prototypes), but it’s here in our dirty little hands, ultimately, and it’s glorious — well, as glorious as a stillborn product may be, anyway. The N9 is the most recent and greatest in a protracted line of quirky, interesting, yet ultimately flawed touchscreen experiments from Nokia that incorporates the Hildon-sporting 7710 , a chain of Maemo -based “internet tablets” ( 770 , N800 , N810 , N900 ) and most recently, the N950 MeeGo handset for developers. What makes the N9 special is that it represents Nokia’s last flagship phone as an independent player. MeeGo is already dead, and future high-end devices from the manufacturer will run Windows Phone and use Microsoft’s services. So, is that this the company’s final bittersweet hurray? Did 0 MeeGo 0 ever stand a bet against Android, 1 iOS 1 and 2 Mango 2 ? In its try to stay relevant, is Nokia throwing out the newborn with the bathwater? Most significantly, how does the N9 fare in today’s merciless 3 dual-core world 3 ? Discover after the break.

Hardware

Love initially sight — here is possibly probably the most beautiful phone ever made. It isn’t our first hardware love affair (we’re observing you, 0 iPhone 4S 0 ), nor likely our last, however the N9 is in a category of its own on the subject of design. You’ve never seen anything find it irresistible, and in case you think it’s attractive in pictures, wait until you notice it in person — it’s completely and utterly irresistible. It manages to be elegant by virtue of its minimalism yet remains unmistakably Nokia. The impeccable proportions belie the handset’s 12.1mm (0.48-inch) thickness because of tapered ends such as its more ornate predecessor, the 1 N8 1 .

All of it starts with a coloured-through polycarbonate monolith, that’s machined (not cast) to form the N9′s unibody. The finish looks matte and feels almost like anodized aluminum, but is significantly harder. Our review unit came in black but cyan and magenta versions also are available. The back is slightly convex and lines an oval chrome-finished (and scratch-prone) pod that’s flush with the body and homes the marginally recessed eight megapixel autofocus camera. A dual-LED flash is offset to the left of the lens. Front is the majority screen with out a buttons, and only a tiny slit for the earpiece on top. Curved 2 Gorilla glass 2 flows into the bezel like liquid spilling onto a flat surface. The three.9-inch 3 FWVGA 3 (854×480) 4 ClearBlack 4 AMOLED display is exceptional, rivaling Samsung’s 5 Super AMOLED Plus 5 — text and graphics just seem to float at the panel, further refining the experience.

You will find a silver Nokia logo in conjunction with proximity and ambient light sensors on the top fringe of the screen, and a charge indicator LED and front-facing camera at opposite ends of the ground part of the glass. The perimeters of the handset are rounded, and the proper edge incorporates both a chrome volume rocker and an influence / lock key. A speaker and microphone can be found along the lowest, and the highest side hosts a silver-rimmed 3.5mm headphone jack plus a precisely machined door protecting the micro-USB connector and flanked by the 6 micro SIM 6 tray. The battery is sealed and there’s no microSD card slot, however the N9 comes with either 16GB or 64GB of built-in flash storage. Fit and finish are top-notch, and the 135g (4.76oz) device feels solid and cozy in hand, with almost exactly the same footprint because the familiar iPhone 4.

Peek inside, and you will be catapulted a year back to the dignity days of TI’s 7 OMAP 3630 7 SoC (popularized by Motorola’s once mighty 8 Droid X 8 ), which mixes a single-core 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU with a PowerVR SGX530 GPU. Within the N9, this chipset is paired with 1GB of RAM, making it Nokia’s highest specced phone so far, and promising to provide a lot of muscle without obliterating battery life, not less than on paper (more in this later). Digging further, you will find Nokia’s signature pentaband UMTS / 9 HSPA 9 (14.4Mbps) 3G radio, a quadband GSM / EDGE 2G radio for legacy networks, 0 NFC 0 and the standard suspects — WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, GPS / AGPS. Strangely, there isn’t any FM receiver or transmitter at the menu, unlike a lot of Espoo’s past offerings. The N9 also incorporates a full array of sensors, including ambient light, proximity, orientation (accelerometer) and compass (magnetometer).

Not surprisingly for a Nokia phone, reception was trouble-free and calls sounded clear in our tests. We used the N9 on both T-Mobile and AT&T’s 3G networks here in San Francisco and HSPA performance matched our expectations, reaching a good 6Mbps down and 2Mbps up in some areas. Audio quality is superb, however the output is quieter than most other handsets when driving some headphones (like our BeyerDynamic DT990 Pro) — as for the mono speaker, it’s merely adequate. Battery life is pretty decent considering the screen size, the quantity of RAM and the somewhat average-sized 1,450mAh battery. The N9 ran for approximately 8+ hours in our rundown test, which involves playing a video in a loop. Our usage test, which simulates a lightweight day’s use, yielded a formidable 37+ hours. As such, almost all people be ready to enjoy this device for a whole day on an entire charge.

Camera

Eight megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss F2.2 wide-angle autofocus lens, dual-LED flash and 720p HD video recording on a flagship Nokia phone? You understand where it truly is going. While it’s no match for the legendary N8, the N9 takes wonderful pictures. Color balance and exposure are spot-on, and shots always contain an enormous amount of detail, thanks in great part to the very best optics. The sensor seems to be quite small, however, which somewhat affects dynamic range and coffee-light performance. Just like the N8, the N9 tends to maintain detail on the expense of a few noise, leaving a little headroom for post-processing. The flash doubles as an autofocus assist light, but we sometimes experienced problems focusing in low light, especially with distant subjects. We also noticed that the white balance is off when capturing with the flash — it is not a deal-breaker because the handset features a powerful image editor with an “auto-fix” option, but we are hoping this gets resolved with an update.

Overall, the N9′s camera interface is unassuming and intuitive. It provides continuous autofocus, touch-to-focus and automated face detection, but lacks features which are quickly becoming standard on other handsets, corresponding to panorama, burst and 7 HDR 7 modes. Oddly, there is no thanks to use front-facing camera. We experienced some usability niggles, too — like most Nokia phones, the camera app returns the scene and flash settings to default on every occasion it’s started, and there is no automatic macro (you will have to be sure to set it manually to snap closeups). While the amount rocker also doubles as a zoom control, there isn’t any dedicated two-stage camera button. Instead, it’s possible to carry the on-screen shutter key to fasten focus and exposure, then release it to take the shot. Video is captured in HD at 720p / 30fps with stereo sound and continuous autofocus. The resulting videos are reasonably nice, but we noticed some dropped frames here and there, leaving room for improvement.

Software

MeeGo 1.2 8 Harmattan 8 is the sort of breath of clean air it is going to leave you gasping — that may be, until you remember the fact that you’re coping with a dead man walking. It’s impossible to dismiss what’s been achieved here — a thoroughly modern, elegant, linux-based OS with inspired design that’s simple and intuitive to take advantage of, all developed in house by Nokia. Sure, it’s as a minimum a year too late, and it lacks a robust ecosystem, but still, it gives 9 Windows Phone 9 a significant run for its money. For one, it ships out of the gate with copy / paste and card-based multitasking. Additionally, it integrates a plethora of on-line services right within the core of the OS.

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Pull the N9 from your pocket and you may notice that the screen always faintly shows the time together with any notification icons (like @ for email) — a screensaver-like feature inherited from other Nokia phones, which uses little or no power due to the wonders of AMOLED (note that the location keeps changing to prevent display burn-in). From here, you either double-tap at the glass or push the ability / lock key to determine the lock screen with more detailed notifications, the date, in addition to a standing bar with battery and signal information. Slide your finger on a notification and you’re taken on to right place (the true message for email). Alternatively, swipe from any edge around the lock screen to increase the applications view — a vertical grid of icons.

Once within the applications view, tapping any icon launches the associated app (or bookmark), while holding any icon allows you to move it to a different position at the grid (or remove it by pressing a bit red X, if present). Should you swipe around the display from the proper edge, you’re taken to the open applications view — a grid of cards representing running apps. Slide your finger to the left and you’re dropped into the development view, which shows the date, current weather, a listing of notifications and standing updates from social networks. The open applications view operates a great deal just like the applications view — tap to renew / maximize an app, hold to edit the grid (with that little red X again, to shut apps this time). Within the event view, pressing any item takes you to the proper place (the calendar for the date, the Twitter or Facebook app for a standing update, et cetera…)

Swiping repeatedly left or right cycles through all three views, while tapping the status bar on top helps you to set profiles (silent, beep, or ringing), adjust the amount, select connections and alter your online status. Once inside an app, sliding your finger from any edge around the screen brings you back to whichever of the 3 views you started from. There is a also a setting that permits you to swipe all the way down to close an app, but it’s turned off by default. In-app navigation will likely be achieved via a sequence of nested screen, back buttons and long-press menus. Speaking off apps, you can find tons of of them pre-loaded, including 0 OVI Music 0 , Facebook, Twitter, AccuWeather, AP Mobile, 1 Skype 1 , Track & Protect, 2 Angry Birds 2 Magic, Galaxy On Fire 2, 3 Need For Speed 3 Shift and Real Golf 2011. More apps can be found from Nokia’s bundled app store — we installed about a helpful ones, including MeeRadio (internet radio streamer), a file manager, a voice recorder and a stopwatch / timer.

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As we mentioned earlier, several major online services are seamlessly integrated into MeeGo. The 1st time you power up the N9, you’re prompted to login with (or create) a Nokia account. From there, the accounts app supports Mail for Exchange, Skype, Google (for mail and chat), Facebook, Twitter, CalDAV, Flickr, IMAP / POP3, Picasa, 4 SIP 4 and YouTube. You need to note that adding your Google account only will provide you with access to Gmail and Google talk — you will have to establish your Google account a second time via Mail for Exchange (and disable email sync) as a way to see your contacts and calendar. But then, multiple calendars are just enabled via CalDAV — yes, this normally simple exercise is now becoming a Kafkaesque nightmare. Sigh. At the least you just must do all this once, and any other services are easy to configure.

The contacts app displays information (including online status) out of your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Skype. Beyond mobile networks, the dialer allows you to make phone calls directly over Skype. Google, Facebook and Skype chat are all nicely integrated inside the messaging app, while the gallery seamlessly handles photo / video uploads to Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, and Youtube. Unfortunately, several gaping holes remain. There’s zero support for any of Twitter’s imaging services, so we ended up using email to send our pictures to Twitpic, as an instance. Skype only handles audio calls and chat — video is missing in action, and we’re still unsure which app (if any) uses front-facing camera. The SIP client, perhaps?

Surfing the online at the N9 is a minimalistic affair. The 5 HTML5 5 -compliant, 6 WebKit 6 -based browser works normally like you’d expect, with the standard controls, including pinch-to-zoom. Each browser window appears as a separate card within the open applications view and bookmarks are stored icons within the applications view. There isn’t any Flash support, and no browsing history beyond the power to navigate up and down the present URL stack using the back and forward buttons. Instead, whenever you open a brand new window you’re presented with a tag cloud which incorporates keywords regarding the sites you’ve already visited. Tap on a keyword, and you’re taken to the correct site — it is all very clever.

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MeeGo’s email client keeps things basic. It provides a unified inbox but lacks some critical features, akin to server-based search and conversation threading. There is a system-wide search app which indexes the e-mail stored at the phone, but that’s just one week’s worth of messages. At the plus side, the app’s layout is clean and the text is extremely legible because of Nokia’s beautiful new font, 7 Pure 7 (that is used in the course of the OS). The shopper also supports pinch-to-zoom, that is still missing from Android’s own Gmail app. We’d be foolish let alone the delightful virtual keyboard at this point — it offers unobtrusive (and defeatable) audible and tactile feedback, plus automatic word completion, when enabled.

The built-in Facebook and Twitter apps may be familiar to anyone who’s used the official apps on other platforms. a couple of apps are available in for maps and instructions, both using Nokia’s excellent in-house solution (powered by 8 NAVTEQ 8 ). The 1st is analogous to Maps on iOS, but adds a points-of-interest view and the facility to download maps prior to time for offline use. Drive, the second one app, reminds us of Google Navigation, with an interface optimized for in-vehicle use. Both apps work rather well. As you’d expect from a latest handset, the N9 also ships with decent multimedia capabilities. The music player incorporates an OVI Music-based recommendation engine, and the video player supports a large number of formats including MPEG4, 9 H.264 9 , ASP, WMV9, VC1 and Mkv (Matroska).

In relation to performance, MeeGo generally feels quite snappy considering it’s running on mid-range hardware. Memory management and multitasking look like solid, despite upwards of 20 cards within the open applications view. We’ve noticed random pauses when starting apps and when interacting rapidly with apps, possibly regarding garbage collection. It is not a chief issue, but it surely shows that there is a lot of room left for optimizations. As some extent of reference, the retail build on our N9 is significantly faster than the developer build on our prototype N950. In fact, the genuine question is, will Nokia bother issuing updates for a deprecated product?

Wrap-up

6

Nokia’s really made our lives difficult here. At the one hand, the N9 delivers a double punch with gorgeous hardware and brilliant software. It’s arguably the primary competitive flagship phone to come back out of Espoo because the launch of the unique iPhone — a gorgeous feat when you think about how far behind the corporate was even only a year ago. It’s the handset that puts any lingering doubts about Nokia’s engineering chops to rest. We’ve dreams of MeeGo running on 0 Galaxy Nexus 0 -class superphones. Yet despite all that, 1 it was killed 1 before even getting a gamble to prove its worth. No less than the present hardware — with its fantastic design, amazing screen and top-notch camera — is usually reborn because the 2 Sea Ray 2 (guess we’ll discover at 3 Nokia World 3 next week). Still, it is a shame in regards to the software, because given the alternative, we’d pick MeeGo over Mango, despite its weaker ecosystem. In the event you buy this device? It’s difficult to recommend a platform without a future, however the N9 is everything Nokia’s very long time fans has been anticipating, and also you can have it today. 4 MeeGo is dead 4 — long live MeeGo.

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This post is tagged: baby with the bathwater, inch thickness, independent player, Internet Tablets, throwing out the baby, Windows phone