Nokia N9: the World's Most Underrated Smartphone?

jrepin writes "Eighteen months ago, Nokia announced a smartphone unlike any other it has produced before. It was a proper smartphone, one that looked miles away from previous Nokia phones: it was sleek, modern and simple at the same time. The hardware was pretty modern, too; no underpowered processors with severely limited RAM issues to be seen here. And, it runs on an operating system that Nokia had announced dead months before the phone's announcement. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Nokia N9."

Comments

This... is Zombo Com...

[TWX]

... you can do anything at Zombo com, the only limitation is yourself...

Welcome to Zombo Com!

Damn Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

They've ruined Nokia. I loved my N900 and was planning on buying the N9 for both my wife and I, but then they shot Meego in the head. I'm OK with Android, but really loved having full GNU/Linux/X access on my phone.

While Ubuntu has made some mis-steps, I still am greatly looking forward to running Ubuntu Phone on my Galaxy Nexus.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[GameboyRMH]

I think you missed the GP's point entirely, there are tons of locked-down "toy computer" phones out there, the N900 was a handheld PC that you could run anything you want on.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[ssam]

libreoffice.

(Or MS Office, assuming you had the source code. I guess you could probably do it through Qemu and wine if you really wanted)

Re:Damn Microsoft

[JustOK]

Maybe because

I cannot speak for other phones.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because someone who's looking for a full GNU Linux mobile would be very interested with Windows Phone.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[SpryGuy]

I just don't see myself buying into anyone's Walled Garden much less the MS version.

And that's fine if that's your choice. I'm talking about the hardware, and that the OS itself doesn't suck at all.

And I have a free copy of Visual Studio for Windows Phone, and can side load any app I want to develop myself (and I do). So it's not *entirely* walled garden from my perspective.

But my point was that nothing "ruined Nokia". It's good, solid hardware, with a decent OS, that deserves to catch on at least as much as iOS, and that 3-way competition in this space is a Good Thing(tm).

I just think you (and others, including the original parent I originally replied to) are being a bit unfair to Nokia and WP8. If WP8 doesn't meet your needs/wants/desires, that's fine. But it's not "crap" any more than iOS or Android is. And the N9 running Meego might be awesome, but it simply doesn't have a future (I doubt Meego would have competed all that well in a full 4-way race, any more than Palm Pre did... even if HP didn't grossly mishandle it... hell WP8 is going to have a serious struggle at this point). And a Linux Phone might be popular in this forum, but I can't really imagine it being any more than a niche player in the greater consumer world.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[radish]

Nokia killed Nokia, Whilst they may have made products that appealed to you specifically, they were failing spectacularly in the wider smartphone market. Staying on the same path wouldn't have improved anything, they needed a major overhaul. I'm not saying that the MS deal will save them in the long term but clearly something had to change.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[jonwil]

I have a N900 as my daily phone and I have yet to see any phone that comes close. I can (and do) use the touchscreen with a small-tipped stylus for greater accuracy, the hardware keyboard is the best I have ever used and I love the openness and hackability.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[dropadrop]

Nokia killed Nokia, Whilst they may have made products that appealed to you specifically, they were failing spectacularly in the wider smartphone market. Staying on the same path wouldn't have improved anything, they needed a major overhaul. I'm not saying that the MS deal will save them in the long term but clearly something had to change.

Had problems deciding if I should mod you up or respond, but here goes... It's true they had to do something, but they actually already did now and then. The N9 for example was different and people liked it; so they did not sell it to people or make a new model out of it. They where already doing things, but they killed everything that could have saved them.

What really killed Nokia was the belief that years of good sales where due to them being so damn good. Internal competition combined with that attitude caused them to stagnate. "This is what they want, so we'll just keep doing the same thing over and over again". It's a perfect example of how middle management can kill a company...

So will MS phone save them? How could it? Phone manufacturing is outsourced, operating system is outsourced... The only thing left is what killed them in the first place. They might get something to work, but it will never be the same as before.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[fatphil]

I couldn't agree more Even though I have an N9 too, I never use it. And the reason I have a beaming smile on my face right now is because I was the maintainer of the touchscreen driver for the N900 for the year or so before it hit the market (and after that too, but there were never any after-sales issues with that driver, so that was a no-op). Thank you for reminding me to still feel good about the work I did for Nokia.

However, after using it for 4 years, it's still far too often clunky, being too slow to respond to things, and is generally far from perfect. It's just that it was slower than other devices in the race for the bottom when it comes to usability.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[Darinbob]

Butt-weasel-troll-creature. Is that sort of like manbearbig?

Re:Damn Microsoft

[fche]

That's an awesome summary of the situation.

Re:Damn Microsoft

[Skal Tura]

Nokia N900 was AMAZING - Sure it had it's issues to be used as a phone, it simply wasn't polished properly - but that was a real proper geek style smartphone, complete with QWERTY.

I loved it's debian based. The only phone i've REALLY wanted in the last decade or so until the N950 which turned out to be justa developer phone.
Then they dropped the production despite demand being high :(
Auction prices for used N900s were same as new phones when they were last available for sometime.

N950 if sold to public i'm sure would have sold A LOT.
These few models are the only ones i've seen from Nokia in a really long time which combines their HW excellency with some software excellence.

I would buy either N900 or N950 still new to date if they were available - not interested in used phones of this kind, can't be arsed to go through finding out how to reset the system to completely original from factory to avoid 'extras'.
I was waiting and hoping for N950 to hit the shelves like the rising moon! I was hugely disappointed when it came clear it's developers only. I would even accepted drawbacks like short battery life, no camera what-so-ever, no bluetooth and even major ones like way too slow CPU, too little RAM, no MicroSD slot!

I even considered getting N9 despite lack of qwerty phone but the demand for Qwerty outweighed, i might need to SSH into servers on the road, and doing even basic maintenance on touchscreen keyboard ... no thanks, so i got E7. Since E7 nokia hasn't released any phone worth even considering for my use.

I don't want an Android or IOS phone due to obvious privacy concerns, usability concerns etc. I want Nokia Hardware + Meego! and i'd pay extra for that.

To me, other manufacturers are not even proper choice, Nokia is a phone manufacturer first, everything else then, unlike the other companies. This means Nokia pays attention to things which don't come up anywhere in the development cycle with the likes of Samsung, Apple, HTC etc.

Sure, Nokia hardware ain't perfect neither, but they are *phones* from start to finish, and this shows up in things like durability (mechanical) and battery life which are most obvious, and many many little details.
For example, my E7 i've dropped to concrete floor, on asphalt on multiple occasions, but absolutely no damage, the most wear on that phone is on the plastic end parts from being in my pocket. Screen is still like from factory, and the screen is actually so sensitive that you can use thin gloves with it, which i hear other phones are not. Once on a trip i was away for 6½ days without charging my phone before getting back to home and putting it back to charger.
Friend with whom i was on the trip had to charge his android phone every night.

So please nokia! Bring back Meego, make a brilliant phone with Aluminium or Titanium case, nice screen, qwerty, protected durable USB connector, plenty of storage + ram, decent extra low power cpu and meego -> You will sell a lot.
I can't be alone willing to put out extra 100-200€ for a Nokia phone like that! Even if it's "low end" hardware spec i would still happily put the extra 100-200€ !

Re:This... is Zombo Com...

[TWX]

Interesting... Modded down when the point was to satirize the very writeup itself with the reference to the website that satirized the claims and promotions of the dotcom era...

Why I didn't care,

[paladinsama]

21 Months ago Nokia announced that my digital purchases were no longer available for me to use. This is why I never cared for the N9.

It really is a pity it was killed

[CptPicard]

I own one, and it really is very nice. It's too bad Stephen Elop intentionally refused to have it sold in most major markets; I guess he wanted his precious WinPhones in people's pockets instead.

Where-ever it was sold however, I hear it did very well among enthusiasts such as myself. The UI has been marveled about by non-geeks when they've got to play with mine.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[Dynamoo]

It's quite often available on eBay for around €270 to €370 depending on model. However, if the N9 is a bit too mainstream for you, then there's the very rare Nokia N950, which is the developer's version with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The cheapest I've seen one of those is €750, with prices going up to over €2000 (!) which isn't bad for a device that was mostly given away for free to select developers.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[CptPicard]

As a Finnish guy who has been following Nokia since the 90s, yes I do have a pretty good idea.

The important part with enthusiasts is that the enthusiasts are early adopters and often developers. And I'd say that they can recognize a slick UI when they see one, and so can the rest of the population.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[ThePhilips]

do you have any idea what a marketing or sales Exec VP hears when he or she hears this ??

it translates to drop this dog as fast as possible

Don't be an idiot. N9 is popular with enthusiasts because it is Linux based and well spec'ed. I was eyeing it too.

It never became "recommended" to normal users for the simple reason that Nokia announced drop of MeeGo OS about the same time as the N9 was released.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[Tridus]

Because selling Windows Phones is working out for them real well, right?

The enthusiast crowd itself isn't enough to sell anything, but when you have a product with mainstream AND enthusiast appeal, you're in good shape. Enthusiasts tend to talk to mainstream users, and having people "in the know" tell their less savvy friends that this phone is good helps it out, particularly if it's something that actually does appeal to them already.

The inverse is also true: having enthusiasts tell people that something sucks does not help it. Vista's reputation became toxic in the mainstream market because enthusiasts hated it and word spread outside that group. Windows 8 is facing similar problems now, and that poor reputation is carrying over to Windows Phone & Surface in a negative halo effect.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[davydagger]

the n950s were LEANT to devs, and not given.

They are illegal to sell, and ultra rare, with mabey around 400 of them existing in the wild.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[jbolden]

Stephen Elop needed his company to focus on the product line. He wasn't interested in selling a few million extra phones that would divert the transition. Once they decided MeeGo was a dead end, he had to face tremendous resistance from both employees and customers who didn't think it was a dead end. Look at the lead article.

I love the N9. N9 was really cool. MeeGo was cool. I wish Jolla nothing but the best with Sailfish. All that being said, Elop did the right thing for Nokia.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[Dr_Barnowl]

Elop did the right thing for Microsoft.

For Nokia, not so much. If they were ready to acknowledge that they couldn't go on with their own separate phone OS any more, they should have bitten the bullet, embraced Android, and done what Nokia do best - good hardware with good antennae.

Instead they were sold the pipe dream of remaining special and recapturing the market, which they were all too eager to buy into. A shame it was a tar baby. Microsoft will pick over the corpse of their corporation for the juicy bits in a few years.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[cheesybagel]

Android has better licensing costs and allows more customization than Windows Phone. It has more apps. What reason was there to pick Windows Phone anyway? Besides Elop having come from Microsoft that is.

Re:It really is a pity it was killed

[cheesybagel]

I don't think the licensing costs are as low as you claim they are. I have heard from several sources that due to the way the licensing was structured Nokia is paying a lot more per unit than the other Windows Phone vendors. I have also heard that they have paid back in royalties to Microsoft any cash that Microsoft has provided to them. Which is not particularly hard to believe since that article claims they are paying $250 million per quarter on licensing costs alone.

Was TFA hosted on an N9?

[plover]

Because if so, it is the world's most overrated server.

Re:Was TFA hosted on an N9?

[Dynamoo]

Wow, I haven't seen the Slashdot effect in action for ages.

Re:Fuck Nokia and Fuck Phones

[Rob the Bold]

Who cares about this obvious fucking advertisement?

Fuck dice.com and their dumb corporate partners.

If it's an advertisement, it's timed rather poorly. Unless it's supposed to gin up sales on used phones.

Surprisingly Competitive

[Cassini2]

According to communities dominate brands by Tomi Ahohen, the poor N9 and the outdated Symbian are expected to outsell the great savior, the Lumia Windows Phone 8 at Nokia this quarter. Not too shabby.

I would keep the N9 on my resume.

Re:Surprisingly Competitive

[saihung]

And speaking as someone who uses a Symbian Belle device every day, Nokia *finally* got it right. Immediately after they killed the thing and drove all possible developer interest into the dirt, the schmucks.

Re:Fuck Nokia and Fuck Phones

[oodaloop]

An advertisement for a phone you can't buy anymore? Are you taking your meds?

Not underrated at all

[Tridus]

The N9 has actually been rated pretty highly by people that managed to get one, and it's done really well in the market for a phone that got absolutely no corporate support at all from Nokia. Elop sent it out to die, and it didn't.... which has only made the Lumia's sales performance look bad in comparison. (Not that the Lumia's sales performance needed any help to look bad.)

As a US N9 User...

[scorp1us]

I love the phone. It has some rough edges in the UI, but overall emotion = love. I have not felt that way since I got the Apple iPhone 2g. For the record I've used Android 2.3.5, 4.0 and iOS up to 4 as well.

What it does that your phone does not:
When not in a pocket or face-down it always shows the time. Always. This does not drain the battery at all.
Around the time are basic notifications - VM, facebook message, facebook notification, missed call. and there's a app for battery percentage.
My battery will last two whole days. And it completely charges in ~2 hours. Topping it off in a 1/2 ride to work in the car will keep the battery from going below 50% every day.

The swipe interface is good. You get 3 columns so swipe from the edge left/right between. Notification Feed (Facebook Twitter, RSS, etc) with weather at the top, a scrolling app icon list, and your running apps screen which shows 4 or 9 apps, which live-updates the screen. Swiping down from the top edge kills the app.
The top bar (battery indicator, WiFi, connctivity) etc is tap-able and you can change the state of what is on it. 2 taps to change your ring profile. (Android and iPhone are jarring because you have to pop to home and you have no idea if your app will be left running or killed)

All messaging services use the same messaging UI.

The phone never resets (my android did it a lot and iPhone did it occasionally)

What I don't like about it:
Some of the UI is layout less than optimally. For example in the dialer, if I bring up the number pad in-call I can't change speaker/mute without dismissing the number pad.
When reading items from my feeds list (in the application - like facebook) sometimes I get reset to the top of the list.
Lack of awesome apps. For the most part all your major services are supported by the phone and/or are free plugin download.I don't use many apps because the phone already does so much.
When calling voice mail, it shows you your voicemail number that you have to click on, rather than dialing it immediately.

What I wish:
I do wish for a dual core. it only does 720p video, and barely at that. Once in a while I'll get a force-close message but the app recovers by the time you get your finger over the button.
A better dialer UI. It's not a bad UI. It's just not "optimal".

I really like this phone and I look forward to trying Ubuntu's phone when this one dies.

Re:As a US N9 User...

[MrHanky]

The N9 uses a clever low power mode on the AMOLED for the standby clock, which adds about 1 mA to the power drain. It's negligible. iOS could do the same, true, but no current iOS device, as they all use LCDs.

Forgot to add

[scorp1us]

Unlike an iOS5 user, I have working maps. With traffic.

Nokia is the new, old Apple

[BravoZuluM]

Years ago, Steve Jobs was ousted by Apple's Board of Directors. He was replaced by, John Sculley, a proper CEO. Sculley had convinced Apple that he would sell a computer like a bottle of soda. He, of course, was wrong as were the following CEOs. It was only when Apple was selling at $12 a share and Apple was dead did the board bring back Jobs, his vision for the long term and the Next OS. The rest is history.

Nokia is repeating the mistakes of Apple. The Nokia board bought into the Elop burning platform. Never mind that Nokia was on the verge of a great break through in their adoption of a Linux based OS with a world class framework, Qt, to back it. Elop doesn't have the vision or the technical prowess to pull Nokia back from destruction. He is the captain of the Valdez. His oil rig is still burning and spewing oil. Maybe, just maybe, when Nokia is all but dead and irrelevant, a technically savvy CEO with a vision will come in and turn around Nokia. Until then, the N8 was my last Nokia phone.

Meego is an excellent OS platform. Had Nokia proceeded to stay the course, the N10 would have been a must have product.

Re:Nokia is the new, old Apple

[Grand Facade]

Maybe they were paid to squash it?

Just one missing thing

[gmuslera]

Physical Keyboard. The screen is superb, the swipe interface is the foundation of so many new mobile user interfaces, and have good memory/cpu/base OS. But the keyboard... thats what i miss from the N900, the one it have is not bad for being a touchscreen one, and you have a pretty translucent one for console in Fingerterm, but still not there. Too bad the N950 was just for (few) devels.

Anyway, could have a future, Nitdroid enables to dual boot with Android (or run natively a few android games with Apkenv), and probably will be available for it Firefox OS, Sailfish and Ubuntu mobile.

I have an N9

[kurt555gs]

It;s wonderful. The interface is the best that has ever been made. Sad to see innovation die with Nokia.

N9 vs. iPhone

[TimHunter]

The N9 would smash an iPhone the way the Hulk smashed Loki. Pick it up by its leg and fling into the floor, left, right, left, right, leaving iPhone-sized dents in the floor, then grunt "Puny phone" and lumber away.

Of course the iPhone, being a god, would get up, shake itself off, and go on about its business plaguing the earth.

N770, N810 Lines

[gral]

I had the N770 and the N810. They could have used them as a base for great phones. I believe the N9 was a start in that direction. All they needed was to CONTINUE. Not scrap everything they had done, and go with MS. Luckily Google came in and showed them what could have been done.

N9 = Amiga + 20 yrs.

[The Conductor]

The existence of things like the Nitdroid project and Jolla/Sailfish, plus the fact that N9 matched or possibly outsold the Lumia crud despite the massive disparity in corporate support, shows how good the technology was. The last time I saw this was...ooh it hurts to type this name...the Amiga. Commodore went under, not due to poor demand for the Amiga, which was profitable to the very end, but due to massive losses in PC clones that led them to credit default with their suppliers. They couldn't get parts to build Amigas anymore.

I hope that the prevalence of open source these days gives the keepers of the Meego flame more success then the Amigans had.