Nokia N9

The N9 is a medium to high end smartphone from Nokia, running the open-source, Linux-based MeeGo operating system. MeeGo is a joint development effort between Nokia and Intel, though Nokia has substantially reduced its commitment to the platform after the announcement of the partnership with Microsoft and its Windows Phone software.

Lacking staunch support from its own manufacturer, it is likely that application development for the N9 will lack substantially. However, the N9 convinces with a few innovations. For instance, it has a buttonless design (apart from volume and shutter), and instead wholly relies on swipe gestures that switch between a graphical task manager, a notifications view, and the app launcher. This makes it extremely easy to navigate to the most accessed features, even with just one finger. Reviews also applaud the extremely smooth, speedy, and polished user interface implementation, as well as Nokia's excellent maps and offline GPS navigation at no extra cost. Other highlights are a Gorilla Glass protected AMOLED screen, a high-quality 8MP camera with LED flash & Carl Zeiss optics and shutter speed beating point-and-shoot cameras, HD video recording, unibody design, up to 64GB internal storage, WebKit/HTML5 web browser, and NFC (like Google's Nexus S). Whilst the N9's OMAP3630 processor and PowerVR SGX530 GPU might not be up to smartphone enthusiasts' standards, Nokia has a tradition of highly optimised mobile software; meaning the MeeGo 1.2 operating system and applications will have no trouble running on the N9's somewhat dated hardware.