This device would have had keys the same color as its backing, and a backing in a variety of colors. You’ll see a lovely bright magenta coloration here and it’s been suggested that several standard color combinations were in the world. This device would have been running essentially the same software as the Nokia N9 and would have had similar inner components as well. As it is now, you’ll likely never see the Cyan version see the light of day – just Magenta and Black are shown here.

This device has its FCC notification positioned in the top right when the device sits in portrait orientation, and the camera is set off-center with the Nokia branding and a dual-LED flash right next to the large lens. This device also has a slightly thicker body than the N9 because of the keyboard and would have featured duck hits as Nokia Maps and AP News as well, right out of the box.

Have home though, citizens of planet Nokia, because they crew is headed to New York this week for an event on the 5th – that’s tomorrow – bringing a whole new set of smartphones to the public. This event is being held by Nokia and Microsoft at the same time and will likely be bringing Windows Phone 8 as well as more PureView technology to the USA. Stay tuned and tune in to SlashGear’s main news feed at 9:30 AM EST for more!

All of that could be done with no user interaction, Miller said. Certain posters use NFC tags to direct users to websites, and Miller detailed how modifying the tag on such posters could redirect users to malware or an exploited website. The problem lies with the NFC system automatically redirecting users to websites. Instead, phones should be secured so that the user receives a prompt, telling them that they’re being directed to a specific address.

In addition, Miller detailed how the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus had bugs in the NFC parsing code, although he didn’t focus his attention on exploiting those holes. Ice Cream Sandwich reportedly patched the holes, but phones running Gingerbread are still vulnerable. Miller also pointed out a similar NFC issue on the MeeGo-based Nokia N9. That phone allows devices to be paired via NFC even if Bluetooth is turned off, which could allow an attacker to send text messages or make phone calls.

Still, it’s not all bad news: NFC doesn’t function when the device is locked and the screen is turned off. Even then, an attacker would need to get within a couple of centimeters of the device to trigger NFC connectivity. Having said that, passive attacks like the above poster example could be used to lure people into scanning malicious tags.

[via CNET]

There’s not a whole lot of info regarding the Jelly Bean port, and just because it boots doesn’t mean that much will be working. Still, it’s nice to see developers and hacking paying attention to handsets like the N9, not to mention the ancient HTC HD2. That phone also recently saw an early Jelly Bean port, and seems to be a device that refuses to die.

What about official updates? The Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S are currently seeing Jelly Bean updates roll out, and HTC has expressed its intention to update the HTC One X, One XL, and One S to Jelly Bean in the future. Other manufacturers have remained silent so far, although the announcement of a PDK for Android at Google I/O should mean manufacturers have a head start on any future updates.

[via Phone Arena]

Jolla is one of the products of Nokia’s Bridge project, set up to help employees leaving the company start up new businesses of their own. “Nokia will offer training, funding, and help identify business opportunities and partnerships for those interested in starting a new business or a company on their own,” the company said of the scheme, “which can fuel new growth for impacted communities.”

Exactly which patents Nokia has handed over to Jolla is unspecified, though presumably much of the IP in question was produced by the MeeGo team while working on projects like Nokia’s N9. The two companies have a “good and open relationship” according to Hurmola.

Jolla hasn’t confirmed exactly when the first of its devices are expected to hit shelves, though Hurmola says there could be something to see before 2012 is out. The team has been listening “to very strong signals coming from the market” about consumer tastes in smartphones, and has “considered a serious break” with what would traditionally be classified as a smart-device.

Update: Looks like something got lost in translation. According to a statement given to SlashGear from Nokia’s Mark Durrant, the company has not given Jolla any patents. ”We’re proud of the support from our Bridge program to start-ups founded by former Nokia people,” Durrant told us, “but we have not gifted Nokia patents to any of them, including Jolla.”

[via Stefan Constantine]

Those improvements include various problems in network and connectivity being ironed out, though it’s the app tweaks that are likely to see more interest. The Twitter app now runs faster, according to user reports, and introduces streaming updates so that new messages appear automatically.

There are also changes in the Mail and Facebook apps, though Nokia is yet to release a detailed changelog for the 40.2012.21-3 update. Instead, we get a one-line summary that, unsurprisingly, is leaving owners of the N9 somewhat frustrated.

As for the developer version of the phone, the Nokia N950, there’s apparently no official news on when – or even if – that might get a PR1.3 release of its own.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

The physical volume and power buttons are recognized properly, as are any headset buttons, and the USB port is recognized. The LCD shuts off in sleep mode as you’d expect, and there’s Bluetooth and accelerometer support too. Audio playback works in the earpiece, speaker and through a headset.

Elsewhere things get a little patchy. Charging doesn’t actually affect the power icon graphic, so it’s presumably tough to know what sort of level the battery is at, and it takes a hack to recognize the documents folder. Video decoding is handled by software, too, and YouTube is reportedly choppy.

Switching between the two platforms is done via holding the volume up key while rebooting, at which you get a menu option to load into Android instead of MeeGo. There are some other issues, and it’s probably not ready for primetime use, but it’s certainly igniting our longstanding lust for an N9 again.

[Thanks Steve for the tip and the photo!]

HTC will be coming strong out the gates this year at Mobile World Congress with at least one contending smartphone, the HTC Endeavor, and it’s got a Siri rival. It’s also got a brand new version of HTC Sense, that being version 4.0 on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Apple appears to have forced the Pentagon to dump ASUS. Apple’s also seen to be having Apple TV shortages – this likely portending a refresh of the line.

Apple’s own iPad line is being confiscated in China after it’s been found that someone else had the iPad name first. BlackBerry makers RIM feared “morons from outside” in their hunt for a new CEO. NASA is checking out the possibility and viability of a deep space outpost near the moon. Apple has brought in the Fair Labor Association to audit their parts suppliers amid reports that they’re not run as ethically as they should be.

Samsung has revealed the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 to bring Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to the masses at an entry-level price point. Google’s big push for the @home experience is seeing them hit up a Experience Center to bring your house to one central experience point.

There are still several issues still to be overcome before Android on the N9 is a realistic prospect, however. Currently the battery indicator isn’t working – the N9 says it needs to be plugged in, though it’s clear from the video that that’s already the case – and network connectivity is also non-functional at present.

When we last saw evidence of the hack, OpenGL support was also causing headaches. That’s implicit to the N9′s 2D/3D graphics, and without compatibility in the ICS port using Android on the Nokia smartphone would be less than comfortable.

Still, an early alpha is promised as in the pipeline, and hopefully as more people weigh in on the hack the coveted 3.9-inch MeeGo phone might get a second wind as dual-booting demand flourishes. More on the N9 in its untampered form in our original review.

[Thanks Kevin!]

The N9 was launched to much fanfare last year, though Nokia quickly shifted its attention to Windows Phone and its deal with Microsoft. That’s despite strong reviews – ours included - and a very positive reception to MeeGo itself. Development of the OS has now been pushed over into Tizen, while Nokia has said it will use its own work on MeeGo back in the R&D labs to tinker with next-gen devices.

Where MeeGo lacks the bulk of third-party apps, however, Android does not, and for some the polycarbonate 3.9-inch smartphone would deliver the best of both worlds running each OS. At present, pressing the volume-up button during boot automatically loads up Android rather than MeeGo.

Progress is being partially documented over at Maemo.org, though it seems getting the N9′s hardware to work with the functional Android kernel on the handset has caused the most headaches. There’s also ongoing issues with getting OpenGL to work, without which the whole thing is unusable. Still, we’re hoping efforts continue speedily, as this could be just the excuse we need to give in and grab an N9 ourselves.

[Thanks Steve!]

The white Lumia 800 will follow in the footsteps of the white Nokia N9 – shown above – which went on sale in certain markets back in December. Like the N9, the Lumia was originally shown in just three colors, though the CNC’d polycarbonate manufacturing process lends itself to any hue that the raw plastic can be supplied in.

Nokia will also launch the Lumia 800 in the US come February, though the handset will be supplied direct from the Finns rather than through a carrier with subsidy. Pricing hasn’t been confirmed, but CEO Stephen Elop made no mention of the white model being included in the line-up of unlocked options.

More on the Lumia 800 in our full review of the smartphone. It’s unclear whether Nokia will release the upcoming AT&T Lumia 900 in white eventually. We’ve got a request in for more information from Nokia, and will update when we know more.

[via The Australian]

“The increase in our Smart Devices volumes in the fourth quarter 2011 was primarily driven by the broader availability throughout the quarter of the Nokia N9 and the shipments during the quarter of the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 in selected markets, as well as increased seasonal demand for our devices” Nokia

The importance of the N9 in Nokia’s sales results, however, could be significant. The company confirmed to us that the “well over 1m Lumia sales” soundbite referred to Windows Phone sales to-date, rather than solely for the Q4 2011 period; that’s a small chunk of Nokia’s 19.6m unit smartphone sales that quarter.

However, Nokia includes Symbian^3 handsets in its “smart devices” category, and without knowing exactly how many of those phones – such as the C7 and E7 - were snapped up, we can’t fudge an overall estimate for the N9′s share of the segment.

“Nokia launched the Nokia N9, the outcome of efforts in Nokia’s MeeGo program. The Nokia N9 is a pure touch smartphone which introduces an innovative new design where the home key – typically located at the bottom of the device – is replaced by a simple gesture: a swipe. Under Nokia’s new strategy for smartphones, MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences” Nokia

Nokia repeated its mantra from late 2010 on MeeGo’s future in the company, that it would be marginalized as a research platform for “next-generation devices.” Meanwhile, the open-source OS has also been folded into Tizen, an Intel and Samsung led project.

In fact, Nokia’s app folders – which you can see previewed in the screenshot below – are likely to prompt some heated comparisons with Apple’s platform. The MeeGo Harmattan team’s “inspiration” is clear, though we can’t argue with the functionality nor deny that it’s something N9 owners have been asking for.

Other tweaks include new features in the Camera and Gallery apps, though details themselves on the changes aren’t listed. No word on when the PR1.2 firmware will be released, though the version number seems to suggest a January 30 2012 build which could indicate sometime close to the end of this month.

More details on the Nokia N9 in our full review.

[via MyNokiaBlog]

That’s because the N9 is still a relatively rare beast across the globe, with Nokia’s Lumia 800 being the device the Finnish company has heaped its hopes upon. That means the white N9 is likely to show up in Finland, Poland and Russia, but not in the US or UK unless you can source one from independent resellers.

Of course, where the N9 goes, it’s entirely possible that the Lumia 800 could follow. Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 handset has so far only been seen in black, cyan and magenta, but being all but identical to the N9 casing may very well show up in a white iPhone rivaling hue sometime soon.

For more on the Nokia N9, check out the full SlashGear review.

We’ve had our own look at this device in the full Nokia N9 review but WOW, did we miss out on how amazing the device could really be. OR it is possible that whoever is in charge of setting up ad spots in China has such a visionary eye that we can only dream of such glory here in the states. The commercial features Bingbing speaking some rather powerful convictions on how she is an individual and has the uniqueness to bust apart her peers. Some of the situation might be lost in translation here, but there are subtitles for you non-believers.

Look like an advertisement that’ll convince you to pick up this device?

Notice also that there’s a pack of fighting folks outside this woman’s door, they who we can only assume are each Agent Smith from the Matrix wearing the masks of the Gladiator otherwise known as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius. Then again the exact specifications of the masks do seem to match the mask of rapper MF Doom as well. Some sort of conspiracy we must assume. All this said, feel free to appreciate the commercial for what it is in this holiday week where anything goes.

PLUS: this campaign continues in print ads throughout China this month, speaking to a generation of smartphone consumers not unlike what we’ve been seeing in the DROID line here in the states for Verizon.

Hive mind?

The Lumia 800′s casing is made from a single piece of polycarbonate plastic, which Nokia puts through a CNC machine to mill out the necessary spaces and perforations. That’s paired with a 3.7-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, with a curved fascia the bezel of which blends almost seamlessly into the chassis.

There’s also the promise of more Windows Phone magic to come, including the potential for greater customization to further differentiate Nokia’s phones from those of other WP7 licensees. “We’ve only just begun to witness the tremendous result this collaboration with Microsoft can produce” Lumia UX design chief Chris Linnett teases.

For more on the Nokia Lumia 800, check out the full SlashGear review.

This update will be coming to you N9 holders over the air over the next few days and weeks, so keep on tapping away at your Menu, Settings, Applications, Manage Applications until it pops up for you. What you’ll be getting in this update includes, but is not limited to, the following list of items.

- NFC tag reading to instantly interact with NFC tags
- Music controls on lock screen
- Photo and video shooting with color filters: black & white, sepia, vivid, negative, solarize-
- More powerful multitasking with improved memory handling
- Swype for fast typing
- Faster MfE synch, synchronizing only active folders
- Nois cancellation reduces background noise so that your friends hear you better
- Close apps easily with swiping down, this now on by default
- New indicators for standby screen like charging and calendar

For those of you without the device, you’ll probably want to check out the rest of our news on the Nokia N9 from the past few weeks to see what you’re missing. Also note that this device was given Spotify at the end of October and continues to receive support from Nokia as its number one device. Love and kisses! Also note we’ve got a full review of the Nokia N9 for your enjoyment.

[via Nokia]

The N9 has been criticized by reviewers – ourselves included - for the paucity of apps available for the MeeGo platform. Now, it seems, Nokia is doing something about that itself: earlier today, the company released a Spotify app for MeeGo that, according to the company, “is developed and maintained by Nokia in cooperation with Spotify.” While it’s not unusual for a firm to feather its nest at launch by paying developers to produce apps to support a new platform – we saw Microsoft do similar at the release of Windows Phone – it seems somewhat strange that the Finnish company might bother for a platform that a) is seen as a dead end, and b) already offers support for the Ovi Music download store.

Nokia N9 Review:

Alternatively, it’s suggested, Nokia might be looking back to Maemo, the platform that was rolled into MeeGo – along with Moblin – when the company partnered with Intel last year. German site Telekom Presse points to the N9′s actual Maemo roots, and the fact that the smartphone – while branded a MeeGo device – in fact runs a hybrid OS of sorts called Harmattan, developed on Maemo 6. Nokia’s decision to ditch the Maemo name was a marketing one, given the focus and advertising budget (at the time, at least) was to be on MeeGo.

Apps developed in Qt for the N9 would therefore play nicely on Maemo, is one possibility, and Nokia’s sudden urge to bolster the Ovi Store might be a sign that it’s not entirely ready to shift focus. We’ve also heard talk of different color variants of the N9 targeted for limited release early in 2012, along with whispers of that mysterious N9 follow-up still cooking in Nokia’s engineering labs. Of course, there’s also Meltemi to think about, Nokia’s Linux-based platform apparently intended for entry-level devices as a Symbian replacement, and also supporting Qt-coded apps. That’s tipped to be using the Maemo UI but a new kernel, developed by an offshoot of the original Maemo team.

All eyes are expected to be on Windows Phone tomorrow, as Nokia World 2011 kicks off in London – we’ll be there, rest assured, bringing you all the news – and the consensus is that the company needs to present a strong, consistent front if it wants to convince analysts and the market that it stands a chance of competing in the smartphone segment. That might mean any offshoot Linux plans are put on the back burner for a more subdued launch later on, as the Finn’s partnership with Microsoft takes center-stage.

[via My Nokia Blog]

The N9 already comes preloaded with access to Nokia’s Ovi Music store, allowing paid downloads on a per-track or per-album basis. However, Spotify relies on a subscription, a single monthly payment - $9.99 or €9.99 – granting access to the company’s full catalog of streamed tracks.

Interestingly, according to the app description at Nokia’s Ovi Store, the new software “is developed and maintained by NOKIA in cooperation with Spotify” rather than being the sole handiwork of the music company itself. That might suggest that Nokia is doing some coding work of its own, trying to feather the N9′s app options and make the platform more appealing.

We reviewed the Nokia N9 in full over the weekend, so make sure to check that out!

[via Twitter]

The Nokia N9 features a unique pillow shaped chassis with a front side covered entirely by a Gorilla Glass encased 3.9-inch touchscreen display without any physical buttons. It also sports an 8-megapixel autofocus rear-facing camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash. Inside, it’s powered by a 1GHz TI OMAP3630 processor and 1GB of RAM. For more details on the device, make sure to check out our full in-depth review of the handset.

Unfortunately, the Nokia N9 will be restricted to certain markets and will not be available in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. This is so that the device won’t compete with its Windows Phone cousin, the Nokia 800, which should be near identical in hardware. Although specs have not been revealed yet, we have seen plenty of photos, including the recent press shots leaked.

Hardware

Even the harshest Symbian critics have struggled to criticise Nokia’s hardware, and with good reason: the company has consistently pushed out slickly-designed phones and smartphones. If we had a dollar for every semi-recent Nokia handset review we’ve seen that concludes “If this phone were running Android” or similar, well, we’d probably have enough to buy ourselves an N9 outright.

Nokia has certainly excelled itself with the N9. The chassis – a pillowy 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6-12.1 mm and 135g – is a CNC’d chip of pure polycarbonate, shaped like a swollen battery with tapering ends, and nestling into the hand with a feel that falls somewhere between plastic and anodized metal. Three color choices, of cyan, magenta and black, are the pure, unpainted hues of the plastic itself: scratch the N9 and you’ll find more of the same underneath, rather than ugly white.

Up front is a 3.9-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen running at 854 x 480 resolution, the highest of any Nokia smartphone to-date, and using the company’s ClearBlack polarizing system for improved contrast. Nokia is particularly proud of the way the AMOLED and the glass have been constructed, with no air gap in-between. That makes for a picture that seems to float just under the fingertip, or even look as though it’s been painted on the glass.

Colors are rich and Nokia’s UI scheme – the black background blending in with the black Gorilla Glass, which itself curves smoothly to fuse with the body – uses this to its advantage, bright icons standing out like colorful shards. Viewing angles, too, are impressive, in both portrait and landscape orientation, though perhaps not quite up to the standard of some of Samsung’s recent Super AMOLED panels. Still, it’s a beautiful, highly usable display with great touchscreen response.

Physical controls are limited to just a volume rocker and power/lock button on the right side. On the top edge there’s a 3.5mm headphones socket – you also get Bluetooth 2.1+EDR for using headsets – and, under a hinged cover, a microUSB port for charging and syncing. Next to that is a small caddy for a microSIM, the same size as you’d find in an iPhone 4. Our one design complaint would be this arrangement of pop-up and sliding doors, the microUSB cover sometimes proving reluctant to flap back down.

Nokia has given the N9 two cameras, an 8-megapixel autofocus unit on the back with a dual-LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics, and a front-facing camera. Unusually, this front-facer is in the bottom right corner of the display, rather than somewhere at the top, likely for reasons of internal construction rather than anything else. Doubly-odd, there’s no actual way to access it, at least using the camera app Nokia preloads. On the bottom edge is a speaker with a surprising amount of volume and body to it.

Inside things are a curious mixture of technologies, some at the cutting edge of the segment and others dawdling behind. At its heart, the N9 runs a 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP3630 processor paired with PowerVR SGX530 graphics and 1GB of RAM, an ARM Cortex A8 combination that was only really bleeding-edge back when Motorola’s DROID X launched in mid-2010. That’s paired with a pentaband UMTS/HSPA+ radio with support for up to 14.4Mbps downloads and 5.7Mbps uploads. As with other recent Nokia handsets, the N9′s 3G will work happily on both AT&T and T-Mobile USA’s networks, something that can hardly be said for most other smartphones on the market.

Then there are the various sensors, the accelerometer and digital compass, a proximity sensor, ambient light sensor and GPS/A-GPS. No FM radio, nor an FM transmitter, but you do get NFC: Nokia uses that with its newest accessory line-up of speakers, headsets and cordless headphones, bypassing the traditional Bluetooth PIN-pairing system and instead allowing you to tap the N9 to the peripheral and, after a second or two, have them connect automatically. A second tap disconnects. It’s a system that works surprisingly well, with music playback automatically re-routed while in-progress calls are handed over instantly between the phone’s speaker dual microphone array and your Bluetooth headset. Of course there’s WiFi a/b/g/n too.

Nokia N9 NFC demo:

There have been some compromises made to achieve Nokia’s aesthetic. Most obvious are the absence of a user-accessible battery, the N9′s 1,450 mAh Li-Ion power pack being sealed inside the casing, and the reliance entirely on internal storage rather than offering a microSD card slot. Nokia has opted for two extremes in memory, either 16GB at the entry-level or, for those with capacious multimedia collections, a 64GB version.

MeeGo

MeeGo has had a rocky road to market, and it’s not out of the woods quite yet. The combination of Nokia’s own Maemo platform, most memorably implemented on the N900, and Intel’s Moblin platform, most memorably for its, well, amnesiac impact on the PC market, MeeGo was to be the cross-platform best of both worlds. To make things more complex, however, the software build for the N9 was already underway in the midst of Nokia and Intel’s partnership agreement, and so developed partially independently as MeeGo/Harmattan.

Unfortunately, Nokia’s own work on MeeGo proved insufficiently rapid for newly-crowned CEO Stephen Elop, who balked at the company’s sluggardly roadmap and decided to throw in with Microsoft on Windows Phone. MeeGo, it was announced at the time, would be sent back to the labs, a test-bed for future “game changer” technologies but with no concrete commercial future. Soon, it will spar off on another path, as part of the recently announced Tizen, yet another platform with open-source aspirations and ambitions to be on your phone, your tablet, your netbook and your notebook.

There’s the troubled birth, but is the N9 a wallowing nugget of misery or a shining beacon of what could’ve been?

Curiously, endearingly, frustratingly, it’s broadly the latter. Like iOS, there are no widgets, but MeeGo feels like it has been designed with multitasking and social integration from the outset. The homescreen is a triptych of panes: a vertically scrolling app menu, with icons for all your software, then a task-switcher pane showing thumbnails of recently used apps in the order you last accessed them, and then finally a notifications pane, with weather, a section of email/calendar/etc alerts, and a long feed of recent updates from Facebook and Twitter. Swiping left and right slides between each pane.

Nokia N9 MeeGo demo:

The whole interface is awash with neat little animations and usability tidbits, all with touch at their heart. Lists spring and bounce when scrolled to their end, and there’s no lag to be encountered in swiping. Tap the title bar, with its icons for battery, network status, time and activity, and up pops a simple pane showing the current profile – silent, beep or ringing, with the ringing bar extending to show ringer volume – volume and current connections or downloads, including WiFi status and your availability on Facebook chat, Skype and Google Talk, all of which are supported natively.

Navigating between apps is all swipe-based: swipe across the screen in any direction to exit the current app and return to the homescreen. Optionally, swiping down can close the app rather than leave it running in the background. Otherwise, manual task management is done from the multitasking pane, which by default shows four large thumbnails on-screen at a time, but with a pinch-zoom gesture can flip to showing nine, complete with a neat zooming animation. Tapping any app re-opens it; holding down on the thumbnail pulls up red “X” buttons for each app, allowing you to close it completely. A “Close All” option at the bottom takes you back to square one. It’s a button we seldom felt the need to tap, however; even with 25+ apps in the list, the N9′s 1GHz single-core handled things well, though occasionally we’d see a little sluggishness as apps loaded.

Considering how touch integration was so uncomfortably bolted onto Symbian back in the S60 v.5 (aka Symbian^1) days, a clumsy afterthought, it’s great to see that Nokia’s software engineers do actually know what they’re doing with touchscreen technology. It took mere minutes to get used to the swipe multitasking, helped by the fact that MeeGo drops you back exactly where you were in the homescreen triptych, even if you were scrolled partway down the app launcher list. Apps introduce themselves with a sentence explaining the functionality: suggesting you sync music across from your computer, for instance, or inviting you to create your first note.

Then there are the less obvious elements, which help add to MeeGo’s sense of depth. When locked, the N9 shows a dim white clock – the low-power benefits of AMOLED allowing it to stay active for this all the time, without draining the battery – and some notification icons, such as “@” when you have new emails. You can reach the regular lock screen by pressing the physical button on the side, but alternatively a brisk double-tap on the touchscreen takes you there too. From there you can see just how many emails you have, along with a preview of the latest; a swipe in any direction unlocks the phone.

Alternatively, though, you can swipe up halfway, pause for a second, and then get a row of four shortcuts along the bottom of the screen: phone, messages, camera and browser. Press the volume buttons while on the homescreen, and you can switch between profile modes without having to fully unlock the N9. Head into the settings pages, meanwhile, and you can find not only a percentage of what juice remains, but an estimate of talktime and standby time in days, hours and minutes. It even tells you the condition of the battery. Then there are data limit options, both for cellular data use on your home network and when roaming.

Software

Nokia doesn’t stint on preloaded applications with MeeGo: the N9 comes out of the box with just about everything you’d expect from a recent smartphone. Email supports Exchange, Gmail (though not with push), and any IMAP/POP account you might have, served up in a universal inbox. There’s no conversational view, unlike on Android, though you can pinch-zoom to get in close to attached photos and text. Begin scrolling and a shadow scrollbar appears down the right hand side: drag it, and you can easily jump down the list by date. Up to a week’s worth of messages are synchronized, and the dedicated Search app includes those – though not what’s still on the email server – among its queries.

The on-screen keyboard is particularly good, offering both portrait and landscape variants and supporting a sharp haptic buzz that does a great job of feeling localized to your fingertip. Audio feedback is another option. Word correction and auto-complete are each supported, and while the N9 doesn’t have as large a screen as, say, some of the more recent Android devices, we still had no issues with accurate text-entry on it.

The N9′s browser supports pinch-zooming, text-reflow and HTML5, though oddly not Flash, despite that being offered on Symbian phones. Still, it’s a neat little app: bookmarks are – either conveniently or overwhelmingly, depending on how addicted to creating favorites you are – saved as icons in the app pane, and each open window is served up individually in the task switcher.

Calendar and Contacts work as you’d expect, combining your Google, Exchange, Facebook and other sources into a single location. MeeGo pulls in profile photos from your Facebook friends, and creates monogram “squircles” for those it can’t find. The dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps – which each feed their recent updates into the notifications homescreen pane – are basic but serviceable. Oddly, while you can upload photos directly to Facebook, you can’t do the same with Twitter, and you’re also limited to just one of each account. Those hoping to manage their work and personal tweets from the N9 will be disappointed.

As with Symbian Nokia devices, the company doesn’t assume you’ll be satisfied with solely cellular voice calls. A Skype client – which also supports chat and contacts sync – is preloaded, plus those with their own SIP accounts can register them and access VoIP as another option in the dialer. Both WiFi and 3G VoIP is supported, though your carrier may not like the latter.

Multimedia on the N9 consists of the gallery, the music app and the video player, plus a link to the mobile YouTube site. Images can be tagged and viewed by tag group, as well as marked as a favorite for quicker subsequent access. Both photos and video from the N9′s camera are mixed together in the gallery timeline, though you can pull out video clips separately. Images can be shared via NFC, if you have another device that supports the standard.

The music app is straightforward and somewhat reminiscent of an iPod in its UI. Album art thumbnails cluster at the top of the screen, with links to Artist, Album, Song and Playlists below. There’s also access to the Ovi Music store, offering MP3 song and album downloads directly to the N9. Audio quality from the integrated speaker was loud and clear, with the phone doing a decent job of cranking up volume without suffering too much distortion. Finally there’s the video app, which seems intended for side-loaded clips rather than those you shoot yourself with the N9′s camera. H.263, MPEG4-SP & ASP, H.264 BP/MP, WMV9 / VC-1 and Mkv (Matroska) formats are supported. There’s no apparent way to access your own footage from the app; instead you have to play it back through the gallery.

Nokia Maps and the Drive app are two of the jewels in the company’s software and services crown. Offering a solid alternative to Google Maps Navigation on Android. As well as comprehensive NAVTEQ mapping data – which can be downloaded on a country-by-country basis directly to the phone’s own storage, useful if you’re going abroad and want to navigate while avoiding data roaming fees – there are turn-by-turn directions and points of interest with reviews from Qype and other sources. Directions can be tailored for those driving and those on foot, with the former getting the dedicated Drive app that presents an oversized, finger-friendly interface for when you’re behind the wheel, and the latter usefully flipping the map so that your next turn is always shown ahead of how you’re facing.

All the basics are covered, with a calculator, documents viewer, RSS feed viewer and notes app, plus a WiFI Hotspot app that allows you to share your 3G connection with multiple WiFi-connected devices, such as notebooks and tablets. There are also four games – Angry Birds, GOF2, NFS Shift and Real Golf 2011 – none of which exactly burn a hole in the current line-up of mobile titles, but which play well on the N9 and look great on the ClearBlack display.

Nokia’s comprehensive selection is a good strategy for the company to take: it keeps users away from the Ovi Store and potential disappointment. There are certainly apps for the N9 in there – MeeGo support Qt development, just like Symbian – but simply not as much choice as on an Android handset or an iPhone. Whether that’s likely to change much is questionable: Nokia’s public change of direction, away from Symbian, MeeGo and Qt and toward Windows Phone, telegraphs a pretty clear message to developers deciding where to invest their time and efforts.

Camera

Although the N9 has two cameras, MeeGo only comes set up to to use one of them: thankfully it’s the rear-facing f2.2 8-megapixel snapper with the Carl Zeiss optics. The camera app itself is straightforward to use, though there’s no dedicated shortcut key; the volume rocker acts as a control for the 4x digital zoom. Touch-to-focus is supported, and the autofocus system in general is quick, though we found it could be a little less accurate during macro photography.

The end result, though, is excellent. Colors are accurate and on the pleasing side of saturated, while exposure is only frustrated by particularly over-illuminated scenes. There’s a huge amount of detail in each shot, too, though some noise can creep in there as well. The dual-LED flash is bright and often overwhelming, and we found low-light shots could sometimes do better leaving things to the f2.2 aperture lens.

Once you’ve taken a shot, you can do red-eye removal, straighten the frame and automatically fix the colors and exposure with the onboard editing tools, all the while leaving a copy of the original frame untouched for later experimentation.

The single-core processor, among other things, keeps video recording to 720p HD at most, rather than 1080p. Nonetheless, you get 30fps support in 16:9 aspect, with some control over white balance and exposure. There’s also continuous autofocus along with stereo sound recording thanks to the twin microphones.

The eventual clips are solid, if not outstanding. The N9 shows a tendency to over-expose, leaving brighter areas of the shot washed out. There’s also noticeable noise and some blurring with faster-moving objects. Still, the autofocus shows admirably little hunting, and the sound pickup is good.

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.

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.

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 – 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 – but we can be more than wistful that the N9 and MeeGo came that little bit too late to have their true worth recognized.

Meanwhile, the green Nokia N9 has no suggested availability, at least at present. It’s possible it could be a prototype not intended for actual release, as Nokia finesses the polycarbonate machining process used in the production of the N9 chassis (and, we expect, the chassis of select Nokia Windows Phones).

It’s not the first time a white N9 has been caught in the wild. Back in August the phone was caught taking a photo in the hands of model Sanja Suzanna, who has also been featured on Nokia’s own N9 mini-site. At the time it was suggested that it could be a close-fitting case, though no official explanation has been given and, according to Nokia, red, blue and black are the three colors the N9 comes in.

Update: We’re told the white N9 was originally cancelled, but now it seems some locations will receive a limited number of them. Similarly, the green N9 will also be a limited edition.

[Thanks JOE!]

Although Intel and Samsung are the big names, The Linux Foundation isn’t short on supporters either. Members include Fujitsu, Panasonic, NEC, Motorola, ARM and a host of others, though who exactly will be using Tizen and who will just be quietly observing from the sidelines remains to be seen.

“We believe the future belongs to HTML5-based applications, outside of a relatively small percentage of apps, and we are firmly convinced that our investment needs to shift toward HTML5. Shifting to HTML5 doesn’t just mean slapping a web runtime on an existing Linux, even one aimed at mobile, as MeeGo has been. Emphasizing HTML5 means that APIs not visible to HTML5 programmers need not be as rigid, and can evolve with platform technology and can vary by market segment” Imad Sousou, co-chair MeeGo Technical Steering group

MeeGo’s vision of future mobile platforms tallies well with Tizen’s, unsurprisingly. According to the project’s new site, the app programming interfaces are “based on HTML5 and other web standards” with APIs for the platform’s functionality including messaging, multimedia, camera, network, and social media.

“For those who use native code in their applications, the Tizen SDK will include a native development kit. We will open the entire Tizen software stack, from the core OS up through the core applications and polished user interfaces” Tizen

The decision to roll MeeGo into Tizen is already meeting push-back from existing developers, however, who are unclear on where the cross-platform Qt framework fits into the mixture. It’s also uncertain what buyers of the first Nokia MeeGo device, the N9 which began shipping this week, will get in terms of Tizen support. Nokia has said the smartphone will be supported “for years” with several updates already in the pipeline. Whether that includes a Tizen upgrade has not been confirmed.

It’s also unknown as to what Tizen means for Samsung’s bada platform, itself tipped to go open-source in 2012. Samsung is known to be considering its software “competitiveness” in the face of Android’s increasingly litigious circumstances and Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and bada itself is similarly HTML5 and web-runtime centric to how Tizen has been presented. Whether that means the Korean firm will fold bada into Tizen, just as MeeGo is being incorporated, remains to be seen.

For the moment, they’ll be the only way to enjoy the platform Nokia had originally bet its future on. MeeGo was to be the triumphant Symbian replacement, but tardy development and a roadmap with fewer devices pinned to it than Nokia needed meant the company looked elsewhere, eventually settling on Windows Phone and a partnership with Microsoft.

That’s not to say MeeGo is bad: in our brief time with the N9 we were impressed at the swipe-happy navigation system, clean UI and the slick hardware it was all wrapped up in. That hardware style will be carried forward to at least one Windows Phone device. Actually finding a place to buy an N9 may be the biggest issue outstanding, with the list of countries where the smartphone will be officially offered dwindling fast.

Nokia N9 demo:

The Nokia N9 was introduced with a warm reception back in June as it raised new hopes for the MeeGo platform with its unique design and revamped interface. It featured a 3.9-inch full touchscreen front-face covered with Gorilla Glass, pillow-shaped chassis, promising new swipe interface, and premium Carl Zeiss optics for its 8-megapixel camera.

However, Nokia will be basing its first Windows Phone 7 Mango handset on the N9 with near identical styling. And since Nokia is committed to promoting Windows Phone 7, distribution for the N9 would understandably be limited, especially in the major markets where Nokia hopes to make a big splash with its first Windows Phone, codenamed the “Sea Ray.”

[via Nokia]

The disappointing news follows confirmation earlier in the week that neither the US nor the UK would get the MeeGo phone. Rumors earlier in the year suggested that Nokia was positioning the N9 as a niche device, with less than 100,000 units expected to be produced.

Nokia pulled a countdown timer for the N9 recently, leading to further suggestions that it was attempting to downplay the handset’s launch. The company appears to be focusing on its Windows Phone range, expected to arrive in Q4 this year, with the Sea Ray prototype – that borrows the same polycarbonate unibody styling as the N9 – tipped to provide an aesthetic alternative for those in countries not getting a MeeGo launch.

[via PhoneArena]

“As an organisation Nokia takes a market by market approach to product rollout and each country decides which products to introduce from those available. These decisions are based on a local assessment of existing and upcoming products that make up Nokia’s product portfolio and are intended to provide the best local portfolio for the UK market. Although we are delighted with the very positive reception that the Nokia N9 has received, here in the UK there are no plans to offer the Nokia N9 at present.”

The decision is almost undoubtedly down to Nokia’s Windows Phone roadmap, and a wariness around potentially missing out on sales of devices running the Microsoft OS from those who have already bought the N9. The MeeGo phone could also run the risk of overshadowing the Windows Phone push, should its sales be particularly strong, re-igniting suggestions that Nokia made the wrong decision in adopting Microsoft’s platform at the cost of its own.

Nokia’s move to marginalize MeeGo comes hot on the heels of word that the company is also axing its Symbian range in North America, clearing a path for its first Windows Phones later on in 2010. The real push isn’t expected until the first half of 2011, however, with Nokia hoping that the new devices turn around what has been a disastrous financial quarter.

A leaked video earlier today purportedly showed some of those devices potential bringing salvation, though so far only the so-called “Sea Ray” prototype – which looks almost identical to the N9 – has been publicly shown.

AllThingsD interviewed the head of Nokia’s US subsidiary, Chris Weber, who said that the company will be putting all efforts behind its new Windows Phone products. He also revealed that Nokia intends to sell exclusively through traditional wireless carriers, whereas in the past the company had a difficult time getting carriers to subsidize and market its products.

“When we launch Windows Phones we will essentially be out of the Symbian business, the S40 business, etc., ” said Weber. “It will be Windows Phone and the accessories around that. The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn’t matter what we do (elsewhere).”

Nokia sees North America as the key market for Microsoft as well as for winning the smartphone battle worldwide, which means that its first Mango handset, codenamed the Sea Ray, will ship in the US first. In contrast, the N9 MeeGo handset, which the Sea Ray appears to be modeled after will not be making an appearance stateside.

[via AllThingsD]

“After the very positive reception to the launch of the Nokia N9, the product is now being rolled out in countries around the world. At this time we will not be making it available in the US. Nokia takes a market by market approach to product rollout, and each country makes its own decisions about which products to introduce from those available. Decisions are based on an assessment of existing and upcoming products that make up Nokia’s extensive product portfolio and the best way in which to address local market opportunities” Nokia

A similar comment was given to The Inquirer regarding a potential N9 launch in the UK, with Nokia saying that it would “share more information about the specific markets and the pricing closer to product availability.” Meanwhile, retailer The Carphone Warehouse has said that, as things stand, the N9 is not destined for the UK’s shores.

Hopes of a US release had been raised when the N9 was spotted clearing the FCC last month, a rite of passage that usually closely precedes availability. Now, however, it’s looking like early suggestions that Nokia was treating its MeeGo phone as a niche device, with only 92,000 units expected to be produced, will turn out to be accurate.

Instead, it appears Nokia is keen to leave key markets receptive to its Windows Phone handsets, one of which is the distinctly N9-esque Sea Ray. Previous rumors claimed that Nokia would only release MeeGo devices in markets where Windows Phone launches weren’t on the roadmap, and that decision-limiting stance may well turn out to be true.

The European carrier, Orange, has confirmed previously that the N9 would launch in Switzerland on September 19, and that lines right up with the countdown. It may then be followed by Sweden, which is reported to receive the handset on September 23. But oddly, other major European markets such as the UK, Germany, and France have yet to get confirmed dates. Pricing has also not been revealed, although it’s said to be quite affordable with an attached service plan.

The N9 features a slick 3.9-inch touchscreen display covered by Gorilla Glass on a pillow-shaped body with an 8-megapixel camera equipped with Carl Zeiss optics. Nokia’s first Windows Phone, codenamed the Sea Ray, is almost identical in form and may make its debut during an August 17 event.

However, both phones are slated to launch in Europe first, with the N9 coming out first in September followed by the Sea Ray, rumored for sometime in November.

[via Engadget]

Previous Nokia comments and roadmaps for MeeGo, which suggested a range of devices were on the cards, have led to speculation that this second tipped model to use to the platform will be a tablet. MeeGo v1.2, with support for tablets – as well as netbooks and in-car systems – was released back in May.

Still, those roadmaps were formulated well in advance of Nokia’s decision to switch to Windows Phone, and in the aftermath MeeGo was relegated as a lab experiment rather than something the Finnish company expected to be its long-term salvation. Our own hands-on time with the N9 left us impressed with the OS and keen to see more devices running it, though earlier iterations for tablets were less convincing.

The mid-September launch is a little earlier than previous dates we’ve heard. Sweden is expected to get the N9 on September 23 via carrier Three. So far, though, Nokia’s usual stomping grounds – such as the UK, Germany and France – are yet to see any official dates, and the carriers are remaining quiet on the whole issue.

In fact, some rumors have suggested that Nokia does not even intend to launch the N9 in the UK and other traditionally well-served locations, instead holding off its attentions until the first batch of Windows Phone Mango handsets are ready. The first such device, codenamed “Sea Ray”, sticks closely to the pattern set by the N9, with a polycarbonate casing and smoothly curved glass fascia.

[via Twitter]

In addition to the teardown shots – which spread the 1GHz TI OMAP3630 processor, 8-megapixel camera and non-user-accessible battery across the FCC’s test bench – there’s a 113 page user manual if you want to brush up on your MeeGo before you grab the N9 itself. With ease of use Nokia’s primary goal, however, you should be able to dive straight in without troubling yourself with its pages.

Official release dates for the N9 – as well as where, exactly, the smartphone will go on sale – are still unknown, with Nokia only saying that the handset will arrive later on in 2011. The company would do well to launch it sooner rather than later, however; dire financial results including an almost €500bn loss announced yesterday have done little to enthuse investors.

If you prefer your smartphones to be in one piece rather than deconstructed, check out our hands-on preview with the Nokia N9.

[via My Nokia Blog]

According to Nokia, the ad team decided a regular 30 second slot would be “far too slow-moving,” hence these somewhat frenetic clips. Whether you would learn enough about the handset from them to actually leave you wanting to buy it – if you hadn’t heard of the N9 beforehand – is arguable, though.

Nokia’s message has been somewhat mixed in its launch of the N9, with the handset announced with great excitement and then quickly followed up by the first “accidental leak” of one of the company’s Windows Phone devices. It was widely suggested that Nokia leaked the Mango handset – which closely resembles the design of the N9 – purposefully, so as to diffuse complaints that the company should have stuck with MeeGo rather than look to Microsoft’s OS.

If we were of the cynical persuasion, we might wonder whether a phone – and platform – so easily made lustworthy in just nine seconds could suggest that there’s a whole lot more potential to MeeGo than Nokia is currently taking advantage of. You can find more on the N9 in our hands-on report, with some longer, slightly more comprehensive video demos.

Whether those reassurances will be sufficient to make the N9 a sales success remain to be seen, though there are signs that Nokia itself has only moderate ambitions for the MeeGo phone. Previous leaks have tipped small-scale production and modest sales projections – something Nokia itself has declined to comment on, naturally – with the primary focus remaining on Windows Phone 7.1 Mango.

Nokia has said that it sees MeeGo development as a test-bed for future disruptive mobile technologies, though it’s unclear exactly how many of those will find their way out to the N9 and any other devices running the OS that Nokia releases. The company is yet to commit to a specific launch date for the N9; check out our hands-on report here.

Nokia N9 hands-on

[via IntoMobile]

Nokia has been talking a lot about the camera module that its new N9 smartphone uses over the last few months. A week or so back we talked about Nokia boasting that the camera on the N9 was the fastest around and that it supported NFC image transfers. The key factoid in that claim if fastest camera is that the N9 cam can be on and ready to use in 2.9 seconds. The next closest was the iPhone 4 at about three seconds.

With all the talk about how fast and high quality the camera is the thing that I and a bunch of you really want to know is how the photos look. Nokia has posted up a complete gallery of photos taken by the N9. The photos are not edited or adjusted at all according to Nokia and are just as they came from the camera. The pics look really good. One thing that I really want to know I don’t see a photo to represent is how fast the shutter is. I can’t take a pic of my kids with the iPhone if they are moving because it won’t snap the photo before they are out of the frame. Check out a few of the gallery pics below, which I did resize for our website. The originals can be seen at the source link.

[via Nokia]

Various budget-friendly Android tablets are on their way, including the Vizio 8-inch tablet, Acer Iconia Tab A100, Archos G9 series 8-inch and 10-inch tablets, and the Huawei MediaPad. Various smartphones are either on their way or have just launched, including the Motorola TRIUMPH, Droid 3, and Droid Bionic. There’s also the AT&T LG Thrill 4G and the T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide. Some Apple news rounds out this week’s review. The full video and list of pertinent links can be found below.

Nokia:
Nokia N9 official: 3.9-inch MeeGo smartphone
Nokia N9 hands-on [Video]
Nokia N9 on sale “within a month”?
Nokia N9 Android app support promised with Alien Dalvik
N9 camera fastest around boasts Nokia; NFC image transfers supported
Nokia N9 Sweden Release September 23rd, Gorilla Ice Cream in Tow
Nokia Windows Phone gets demo: N9-a-like shows Microsoft love [Video]
Nokia unveils new accessories for its smartphones
Nokia N9 and NFC Nokia Play 360 speaker hands-on [Video]
Nokia N950 confirmed for MeeGo devs: 4-inch QWERTY slider
Nokia N950 arriving with MeeGo developers now
Nokia N950 gets video tease
Nokia N950 teardown revealed

RIM:
RIM Forcing Half-Baked BlackBerrys On To Carriers?
Seesmic App Drops BlackBerry Support, Other Apps To Follow?
RIM Starts Layoffs After Dismal BlackBerry News
RIM slashes PlayBook sales goals for Q2 2011

Upcoming budget-friendly Android tablets:
Vizio 8-Inch Android Tablet Demoed In Hands-On
Acer Iconia Tab A100 Hits Walmart For $349
Archos G9 Android 3.1 Tablets Get Dual-Core Fast, 250GB Storage, 3G Ready, And Low Price
Huawei MediaPad brings Android 3.2 on 7-inch 1.2GHz dual-core
Android 3.2 Honeycomb update in “next few weeks”; Huawei MediaPad tipped for August

Smartphones:
Motorola TRIUMPH Pre-Orders Start Today At Best Buy For $299
Motorola Droid 3 To Arrive At Best Buy July 13?
Motorola Droid Bionic Still On Schedule
LG Thrill 4G For AT&T Officially Unveiled
T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide caught in wild ahead of July 6 release

Apple:
Apple Final Cut Pro X released
Apple Final Cut Pro X To Get Updates Every Six Months
Samsung denied early iPad 3/iPhone 5 access but Apple sales injunction hopes fade
Apple files patent infringement suit against Samsung in South Korea
Apple granted iPhone multitouch patent: Lawyers prepare for action
iOS 5 Beta 2 Now Available To Developers
Mac OS X v 10.6.8 update now available
New AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule details emerge, launch imminent
Apple Time Capsule gets 3TB storage boost [Ouch: $499!]
Apple AirPort Extreme gets tiny blip of an update
Mac Pro and Mac Mini August refresh tipped: Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt and Lion
iPhone 5 to be an August game-changer?

Hands-on/Reviews:
LaCie Little Big Disk with Thunderbolt hands-on [Video]
HTC EVO View 4G Review
Windows Phone 7.1 Mango Technical Preview

A beefier camera had been suspected from the start, with Nokia coyly saying that the N950 was “capable of” the same resolution shots as the N9 but leaving wiggle room for something higher-resolution. Other differences include a slightly larger display using an LCD TFT panel rather than the N9′s AMOLED Clear Black display. The N950 obviously has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, too, whereas the N9 is one solid, “pillowy” block of polycarbonate and Gorilla Glass.

The non-user-accessible BL-4D battery – confirmed by the teardown shots – is lower capacity than the N9, at 1,320 mAh, but then again Nokia doesn’t really intend the N950 to be anybody’s daily device: it’s a developer handset, after all. The first units started arriving with coders late last week.

[via MyNokiaBlog]

Back at the Windows Phone announcement, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop suggested that the initial batch of devices running the Microsoft platform would be repurposed hardware originally intended for MeeGo. That was borne out earlier this week, when Elop revealed the Nokia “Sea Ray”, the company’s N9-alike Windows Phone.

Of course, part of Nokia’s strength has always been its expansive manufacturing facilities – the company currently operates nine mobile device plants spread across the world – so the decision to go with Compal seems somewhat unusual. One potential explanation could be simple speed, with Compal already adept at implementing the Qualcomm processors that Microsoft mandates. Although rumors prior to Windows Phone 7.1 Mango’s official launch suggested that ST-Ericsson would join as a chip supplier, powering some of Nokia’s range, Microsoft confirmed that it was exclusively sticking with Qualcomm.

The N9 runs a Texas Instruments OMAP3630 1GHz processor, meanwhile, which suggests that although the Sea Ray may outwardly look the same, internally there’s something different going on and it’s not just a case of installing Mango onto the same hardware.

Although mocking up Android on an N9 image – either by Photoshopping an image on top, or by loading an Android screenshot onto an actual N9 and then displaying it full-screen – would be relatively easy to do, the source of the images does have some credibility. They were also responsible for a leaked shot of the Sea Ray back in May, prior to the company’s reveal this week, and before the N9 hardware had been spotted at all.

Obviously an official Android version of the smartphone will not be forthcoming, but the options for Android compatibility seem to be broadening. As well as Myriad’s Alien Dalvik system for running Android apps on MeeGo devices, there’s also confirmation – as shown in the video below – that the N9 will have a developer mode that will allow complete access to a Root and Debugging system that will make installing new system ROMs easy. That could well pave the way for an unofficial Android install on the N9, giving the best of both Google’s platform and MeeGo.

[via Engadget and via Android Community and via Camb078]

Bambuser already offers a version of their streaming video app for Maemo 5 (as well as Android, iOS, bada, various Symbian releases and Windows Mobile) and that existing focus looks to have earned them the N950 on this occasion. Nokia has previously confirmed that the N950 will be distributed by invitation-only, rather than put up for general sale. The handset will be supplied with no warranty and no service support.

Specification-wise, the N950 has a 4-inch TFT LCD display rather than the Nokia N9‘s 3.9-inch AMOLED panel, and of course adds in a physical QWERTY keyboard rather than being all-touch. More on the specs – and differences – here. As for the N9, that’s expected to go on sale to consumers in Sweden on September 23; availability elsewhere is yet to be confirmed.

[Thanks Steve!]