Engadget’s Nokia N9 review, “The most beautiful phone ever made”.
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It was expected that Engadget’s Vlad would have brought us the N9, but he has moved on to pastures green at The Verge (and delivered us a very, very positive look on the N9). Would this mean no hope of a MeeGo-fan worthy review from Engadget? Well, no worries, it’s Myriam at the helm and she’s always been pretty fair of Nokia phones, having a vast experience with Nokia to know how to get the most out of them
- Love at first sight – this is possibly the most beautiful phone ever made.
- N9 is in a class of its own in terms of design
- Â You’ve never seen anything like it, and if you think it’s attractive in pictures, wait until you see it in person — it’s completely and utterly irresistible
- It manages to be elegant by virtue of its minimalism yet remains unmistakably Nokia.
- Camera -Â Â no match for the legendary N8, the N9 takes wonderful pictures
- Â camera interface is simple and intuitive
- Some usability niggles, too — like most Nokia phones, the camera app returns the scene and flash settings to default each time it’s started, and there’s no automatic macro (you’ll have to remember to set it manually to snap closeups).
Software:
- Â breath of fresh air it will leave you gasping — that is, until you remember that you’re dealing 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 use, all developed in house by Nokia.
- Sure, it’s at least a year too late, and it lacks a strong ecosystem, but still, it gives Windows Phone a serious run for its money
- several major online services are seamlessly integrated into MeeGo.
- Surfing the web on the N9 is a minimalistic affair
- We’d be foolish not to mention the delightful virtual keyboard at this point — it offers unobtrusive (and defeatable) audible and tactile feedback, plus automatic word completion, when enabled.
- MeeGo generally feels quite snappy considering it’s running on mid-range hardware.
- Memory management and multitasking appear to be solid, even with upwards of 20 cards in the open applications view.
- plenty of room left for optimizations.
- As a point of reference, the retail build on our N9 is significantly faster than the developer build on our prototype N950
Wrap up
- N9 delivers a double punch with gorgeous hardware and brilliant software
- Â arguably the first competitive flagship phone to come out of Espoo since the launch of the original iPhone — a stunning feat when you consider how far behind the company was even just a year ago.
- given the choice, we’d pick MeeGo over Mango, despite its weaker ecosystem.
- MeeGo is dead — long live MeeGo. (Maybe, but watch out for Qt)
Videos:
Thanks mo_ep, Souvik and jklubi for the tip!
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Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and  Facebook.com/mynokiablog. Check out the tips, guides and rules for commenting >>click<< Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
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