Nokia N9: the First, and Probably Last Meego Phone
The Nokia N9 has now begun shipping to customers and stores, though no carrier is officially tied with the device. The beautifully designed device features an intuitive user interface that’s controlled with a simple swipe.
“There is a lot of buzz around the N9 and the consumer demand has been huge,” says Product Specialist Risto Lahi from Nokia’s Flaghsip Store in Helsinki. “People love the new, button-free user interface and the intuitive way to browse the Internet. When they try out the device, they are first amazed and then impressed.”
The Nokia N9 has three home views – Applications, Events and Live Applications – which enable people to navigate through the smartphone easily and get to their favorite content faster. A single swipe always takes you home, designed to have the effect of paper gliding off a table.
The Nokia N9 is available in three colors – black, cyan and magenta — with 16GB and 64GB storage options to accommodate plenty of content. The phone will be on sale in several countries around the world. It features a vivid 3.9″ AMOLED display, polarized curved glass, an 8 megapixel camera with wide-angle Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash, and it has a precision-crafted unibody that is seamlessly joined with the polarized curved glass for a sleek and elegant look.
The estimated retail price of the Nokia N9 16GB is approximately $650 and the 64GB is approximately $758, with pricing and availability varying from region to region and operator to operator.
Though the N9 is very attractive and features are very promising, this could be the last Nokia-Intel phone as Nokia is prepping to release their Windows Phone later this year. And since N9 is not tied with any operator, this just strengthens the news that this is the last Meego phone, though the two firms keep insisting Meego is not dead. No news surfaced regarding any other Meego phones to be released this year or in the future.
Though the N9 looks very promising, some are doubtful it will be able to save the sinking mobile manufacturer. Nokia suffers from poor sales due to the surge in demand for Android-powered devices, and Apple devices are also affecting Nokia suppliers. Texas Instruments Inc., which shipped 85% of their applications processors to Nokia last year, covering 92.7% of all Symbian handsets, suffered a second-quarter profit loss of 13% and they’re blaming it on the poor sales of Nokia handsets.
“We knew they were on their way down,” said Philippe Lambinet, STMicroelectronics NV senior executive vice president and corporate-strategy officer, referring to Nokia, “but we didn’t think it would be that bad.”
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