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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."
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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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.
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.
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.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
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.
I am not a crackpot.
According to communities dominate brands by Tomi Ahohen, the poor N9 and the outdated Symbian are expected to outsell the great savior, the Lumia Windows Phone 8 at Nokia this quarter.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.
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.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
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.