It's somehow fitting, running our review of the much-anticipated Nokia N9 smartphone on the eve of Nokia World 2011. The company is expected to reveal its plans for salvation, namely adopting Windows Phone, while the N9 runs what Nokia used to believe would save it, MeeGo. A splash of uniqueness never hurt any device, and the N9 has built up a vocal following, convinced MeeGo should have been the Finn's focus instead of a deal with Microsoft. Has rarity blinded rationality, or is the N9 really a bittersweet slice of not just what could've been, but what should've been? Read on for the full SlashGear review.
E50 WCDMA+GSM)
Phone and Battery
Nokia's reputation for solid handsets isn't just limited to build quality: radio performance is also something the company consistently gets right. The N9's pentaband UTMS/HSPA and quadband GSM/EDGE leaves it content on pretty much any GSM network you can mention, in fact the trickiest part might be finding a microSIM to use. We saw no problems with call performance, and the dual-microphone noise cancellation system worked well without leaving speech too artificial.
As for the battery, Nokia says to expect up to 11hrs GSM talktime (6.5hrs WCDMA) or up to 340hrs GSM standby (420hrs WCDMA) from a full charge, or alternatively 6.5hrs of WiFi browsing, 5hrs of HSPA browsing, 5hrs of 720p HD video playback or 50hrs of audio playback. In practice, with mixed use including some Nokia Maps navigation, browsing over both WiFi and 3G, some photography and multimedia playback, and push email turned on, we reached the end of the day with juice to spare. In fact, the N9 made it through a fair chunk of the next day, too.
Android 2.3 H5000
Wrap-Up
It's not often we review what's effectively a dead product. Usually, if a manufacturer decides to cancel a project, or if the company itself folds, that happens well before the doomed devices reach the SlashGear test bench. Even in the case of the HP TouchPad, the company was still full-steam-ahead at review time, only axing the poorly-selling slate when it became clear how much it was struggling.
Our frustration is that the N9 doesn't deserve to die. In fact, Nokia has delivered a double-punch of compelling software and beautiful hardware: a device that earned curious, envious glances while we played with it in public, and a platform that was both instantly usable and consistently slick. We try not to play ¡°What could've been¡± because, frankly, there's usually interest and intrigue enough in the directions manufacturers do eventually take, but forgive us if we stare wistfully off for a while, imagine a whole range of MeeGo smartphones helping Nokia reclaim its crown.
A05 WCDMA+GSM
Rationally, though, it's tough to recommend the N9 to the general smartphone audience. Scarcity is one big element of that: the number of locations Nokia will actually sell the smartphone is severely limited, the focus very much being on Windows Phone. Meanwhile, the ominous future of applications for the MeeGo platform is our other big concern. There's enough pre-loaded to certainly best any feature-phone, but smartphone owners expect apps; that leaves the N9 too expensive to rival a cheap feature-phone and with too shaky a future to take on Android or iOS.
Nonetheless, it's hard to escape the polish of the N9's hardware/software combination. Seldom are we so reluctant to part with a review unit as we are over sending the N9 back to Nokia. It may not be the fastest, or the most whiz-bang of the smartphones, but it's holistically beautiful and an example in many ways of why Nokia once led the mobile field. The saving grace is that we know Nokia is carrying forward the design and build of the N9 to at least one of its Windows Phone 7 handsets: they may not have MeeGo, but they'll have a future, and we've always had a soft-spot for Microsoft's platform too. We can't blame Nokia for the direction the company has chosen ¨C there's more to it than mere software; Windows Phone gives them a platform, a developer ecosystem, and the might of Microsoft among other things ¨C but we can be more than wistful that the N9 and MeeGo came that little bit too late to have their true worth recognized.