Nokia announces MeeGo powered N9 smartphone

The Nokia N9 is the company's first consumer device to use MeeGo as its OS
Source: Nokia At its Nokia Connection event in Singapore, mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has announced the N9 smartphone, the company's first consumer device to use the open source MeeGo mobile operating system. The candy-bar style smartphone has a polycarbonate unibody, a 3.9 inch 854 x 480 AMOLED capacitive touch screen display and will include version 1.2 of MeeGo, code-named "Harmattan" – the same name used as part of the original Maemo roadmap.

MeeGo is a Linux-based distribution for mobile devices that is the result of the decision to merge Intel's Moblin platform and Nokia's Maemo platform under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. To date, the only Nokia device that has been officially capable of running MeeGo – although this was only intended for developers – was the N900 internet tablet and smartphone which originally shipped with the Maemo operating system.

Nokia's Marketing Manager demonstrates the N9's user interface

The quad-band GSM and penta-band 3G N9 supports a number of built-in wireless options, including 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, as well as Near Field Communication (NFC). Powered by a single-core ARM Cortex-A8 CPU, it will also have an 8 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, A-GPS, 1 GB of RAM and up to 64 GB of storage space. Further information about the Nokia N9, including a video of the N9 UI in action, can be found in a post on the Nokia Conversations blog. A full list of Nokia N9-00 hardware and software specifications is available on the Nokia Developer portal. According to Nokia, the N9 will be available "later this year".

The Nokia N950 will only be available to developers Nokia also gave details of the N950 – aimed at developers, the Nokia N950 is not available for retail purchase and is only available through developer programs including the Nokia Developer LaunchPad. According to The Nokia Blog, the N950 and N9 will have very similar hardware specifications: the N950 has a slightly larger screen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and an aluminium body, but lacks NFC support. Firmware details and release notes for the N950 are available on the Nokia Developer portal, which has just been revamped.

(crve)