Introduction

Nokia N9 was introduce to the world in June, 21st in Singapore to the world and has since gather a lot of interest from all over the world. It is the first Nokia phone loaded with Meego OS. 

User Interface and Swipe

Here is how the User Interface works. N9 starts off with 3 homescreens, one for Notifications and Social Network Feeds, one for whole list of application installed and the final but most interesting homescreen, the Liv e Multitasking homescreen.

Nokia wanted to change the way user interact with their phone, therefore removing all the physical hardware button from the front of the phone. All of the phones nowadays featured physical hardware button for some sort of user interaction including Nokia very own Symbian phones. This is going to change with N9 with the introduction of Swipe.

Swipe as the name suggest indicate a swiping motion, in this case, a swiping motion from one end to the opposite end. It works in all 4 directions, which is from top to bottom and vice versa as well as from left to right, and vice versa. Swipe act like a Home button, minimize application to the background and will be displayed amongst other minimized applications in Live Multitasking homescreen.

There is more though, while the active application is being subjected to the Swiping motion, it will remain active until the Swiping is completed. So if you are in the middle of your game session or watching video for example, the application and game will still be running until the swiping motion is completed. From my experience, it works very well and even has inertia attributes. For example, if you swipe across slowly, the app will minimize if you swipe past half of the screen but if you swipe less than half of it, it will remain the active app. If you are using the phone in landscape mode, you just have to swipe across fast to minimize the app without needing to swipe across half of the screen.

Contacts, Messaging, Email and Browser

Nokia has made it easy for user to transfer their contacts over from their previous phone. User can import their contacts from their iPhone, Android phone, or Nokia phone easily. They just need to pair both phone via the Bluetooth and then start the import sequence from Nokia N9 with some confirmation clicks on their previous phone. The phone book will show the list of your contacts with two initial letters for a better view, but there is no setting to adjust which letter to show. Apart from it, it also support kinetic scrolling as well as alphabetic scroll which is a must have nowadays. Dialpad also support smart dialing search for contact. Quick dial user like me will be disappointed to find out that there is no quick dial.

Messaging app has some nice touch up. First of all, you will be presented with a list of SMS sorted by date which will bring a conversation history between you and your recipient when clicked on. On top of that, there is a chat mode for you to chat with Facebook contact via the messaging app itself. A nice addition. Notification on SMS and chat will be shown in notification homescreen.

Email is also very user friendly. You can add as much emails as you like. I tried Gmail and Hotmail and both work out of box without additional setting for port etc. Emails are well separated by account and there is a search function to find the email using keywords. Further option to set periodic email check interval can be found under Accounts app in homescreen.

This is the app what matters most for most people, me included. The browser in N9 is default to desktop mode and there don't seem to be any setting to change it to mobile mode. It is fast, sleek and has a clean interface. However, as it is now, there will be no Flash Player 10/11 support as we speak. Then, there more getting used to for user. Unlike other platform which use Tab browsing, there is no Tab browsing for N9. Each window session of the browser appear as an app in live multitasking. So when you click to launch a link that is out of the domain which you are browsing, it will launch another window instead of a tab. To return to previous tab as we called it, you will need to close it and choose it from the live multitasking homescreen. I personally find this particularly annoying. I also hope that someday there will be option to launch a new window in background instead of making it active by default. There are also file extension limitation when you download files via the browser. One of the extension that I encounter this error happen to be RAR zip file extension. It would not allow me to download extension that it don't support.

Lock Screen, Screensaver, Calls

When N9 is idling, it will show the usual clock that we find on Symbian platform but with some nice addition. Instead of just a plain clock, there are symbols representing different types of notification you have receive. SMS is represented by the usual message icon, emails by the @ symbol and miss calls symbol as well. 

On to the lock screen, to wake the phone up from Screensaver, you will have to use the ON/OFF button or just simply double tap anywhere on the screen (This would require user to enable it in the DISPLAY settings). This will bring up the lock screen which will show some of the notification in detail instead of symbols shown in screensaver. I find it quite useful because I don't need to check if I'm just getting spam mail or SMS. 

I decided to include calls answering here because I find it so annoying for me. I seriously don't understand why do I have to slide to unlock the phone and being presented with another screen with buttons to receive or reject call or just silence it. This also prompt another question as to why there was no option to set the phone to silence by flipping it over. Even Symbian3 phones have this feature. Did the brilliant screen design with curvy exposed glass make it impossible to introduce this feature as it would subject the screen into contact with the surface you are flipping it on to, risking scratches on to the beautiful screen?

Camera, Video, Game

Let's move onto the camera now. There are plenty of settings to tinker with ranging from Scene, Flash, ISO, White Balance, Exposure, Image Quality, and geotag as well. But instead, I'm going to focus on Touch Focus instead. I have been longing for this feature on Nokia phone ever since I saw it on competing platform. It took them a while but here we are. The experience is somewhat different compared to what I'm used to. I was told that when the camera is in focus, the focus box will turn blue. But when I tried touch focus, it won't turn blue which tells me either it is not focusing like it should be or it's just a small bug that need to be address. Still, it's not a big upset, therefore for the time being, I will just touch to change the focus point, and use the shutter button to get a proper focus. By default, the outcome is slightly over exposed on most occasion but what I like about it is it's ability to capture sharp photo. Getting a sharp photo has been a frustration for me with the Nokia N8, therefore I'm preferring N9. There is HD video capture as well on the N9 but I will not get deep into it except that it has continuos auto focus for video mode.

Video playback seem to be another grey area for N9 due to its old hardware. The issue here is with the HD quality video playback. It seem like it was unable to playback HD content based on MP4 as well as H264. So I went Googling for answer. What surprise me is that while the one year old Nokia N8 actually supports the higher profile for both MP4 and H264, the N9 only support the lower end base profile. Someone who was using Nokia N900 (it was using the same gpu and therefore should have basically the same video acceleration processor) double confirmed with me that my findings are correct and there are limitation to what kind of HD content it was able to play. On the other hand, a fellow Ranger told me this could be fix with codec support ported over to the N9. I'm suspecting this could very well mean that this will have to rely on software processing to get over it but I do wonder if 1GHz CPU is capable of playing them smoothly. We will wait and see on that.

Gaming wise, there are no issues at all except for the limitation of games and apps currently available in OVI Store. There is one small problem though with NFC implementation for the games. While I truly saw NFC works with the N9 with another N9, but I couldn't get it working with my C7. NFC status bar is popping out in N9 but the extra stages in Angry Birds Magic did not unlock. I thought I was doing something wrong, therefore I went to try NFC for file sending and it worked flawlessly. I think this would eventually be solved by future firmware on both devices.

My opinion

I was disappointed with the choice of hardware only because of the problem I encountered with the HD Video Playback and from a price point of view. I could not find an answer as to how I should persuade someone to buy the N9 given that they could now buy a Samsung Galaxy SII for example for just RM100 more. On top of that, Android is a proven platform that has plenty of apps for offer and free as well, while the N9 is basically starting from scratch. To make the matter even worse, Nokia very won CEO said that it's being the burning platform and are going to make a big change over to WP7 with devices being introduced early next year. How much hope should end user place on Nokia that they will not abandon this platform is unknown.

Moving forward, the next topic I would like to discuss is Swipe. I can't say I'm totally not impressed because its really something new, easy to use, depending on your situation. However, when I was showing this to my friends, they were meh, this is it? Swipe to return to homescreen and the rest still based on clicks here and there. I went back and think again, truly what they have said is not totally out of it. Nokia want to introduce Swipe to change how we use the phone. Other than swiping to return to homescreen, there's basically nothing change in the way we used it. Even answering phone calls still using soft button. I can't help but wonder f Nokia could really improve on this and instead let user customize the swiping action for independent application for example switching between browser windows with horizontal swipe and return to homescreen with vertical swipe. There is a lot more possibility on swiping but as it is, it's not that special really. Moreover, the screen width for N9 make it really prone to accidental Swipe. While I think this could improve with prolong usage, I hope Nokia could certainly put more effort into making swipe more common in and around of the whole Meego-Harmattan OS rath than just focusing on the homescreen alone. 

Outlook,Design
The outlook and design is the most attractive and adorable Nokia device i ever see. Beautiful curved screen with clear black display is extremely exclusive and unique.The Nokia N9 is simply attractive with the very thin design. I would rate it by mark instead of word to describe the outlook and design more straight forward. I rate it 9.5/10.


Maps
Compare to other os like Android,iPhone,Blackberry, it is so obvious for Nokia Maps own the crown in mobile phone mapping navigation. I had experienced the performance since Nokia N8. The Nokia N9 maintain the great performance mapping navigation of previous Ovi Maps on all Symbian 3 devices with improvement. Better UI, 3D map view, two-finger map rotation are all improvement from previous version-Ovi Maps. Unfortunately, there is no option for shorter route, faster route or optimized. Hope the coming firmware update will provide this option.


Social Network Integration
The best social network integration i ever experience. Best among all operating system. Simply amazing,simple. The facebook chat integrate in the phone like message. Whenever i receive facebook message, it will pop up like message, ring like message. It not even need to activate any 3rd party application to chat with my friend in facebook. The 3rd party application for facebook chat usually drain battery fast but with Nokia N9 the integrated facebook chat won't drain battery fast. Besides that, the tweeter and facebook updates will update in the left homescreen as notification as well as message. It is very convenient indeed.


Web Browser
The first thing i do for the web browser is HTML5 test and surprisingly the Nokia N9 web browser isn't disappoint me. The result shows 255 and 14 bonus points which is highest among mobile phones os! Smooth scrolling and pinch to zoom is the one of the best browser i experience among all mobile phones. I hope future firmware update will update the browser with flash support.


Camera
The camera part also one of the most wonderful thing in Nokia N9. f/2.2, 28mm wide angle lens, 8 megapixel Carls Zeiss optic able to snap stunning image in the day or night time. Continuous auto focus in video mode also impress me very well. The video quality snapped by Nokia N9 is amazingly wonderful. Most importantly, the camera UI for Nokia N9 is very much improve from Nokia N8 and also one of the best in camera phone territory. Easy to use, simple, nice and beautifully designed.


Operating System
3 Homescreens
3 homescreen view is seamlessly perfect. The left side-notification combine facebook,tweeter and message which is very convenient for every single user. User can view their facebook update, facebook chat, new tweet or new sms in the notification homescreen,all in one. N9 user doesn't need to open web browser, facebook app or any other 3rd party application to view facebook update. Secondly, the middle homescreen is application view. It's so simple and easy to use, very user friendly. Lastly, the right homescreen is multitasking view. All application running on the background which is multitasking show in the right homescreen.
Swipe
Swipe gesture is a totally brand new concept for mobile phone industry, very user friendly and it doesn't need home button anymore. Swipe from any direction (left, right, top, bottom) also can hide to application to background.


In conclusion, the overall os is very solid, smooth and user friendly. It got very high potential in the future. Hope more meego device coming and future updates for it.

The Nokia N9
The Nokia N9 which runs on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan is one of its kinds. As you all know, Nokia has long ago fight in the touchscreen war ever since their first phone the Nokia 5800XM. This was supposed to be their ultimate weapon and all I can say that, it delivered like what they say – Experience the Fluidity. Coming from N8, C7 and X7 user, you will feel the smoothness like never before when you use this Nokia N9. This beast runs on the ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 1Ghz and graphic is handle by PowerVR SGX530. It is also equipped with 1024MB RAM and comes with 2 variations of either the 16GB or the 64GB. Camera none other than the 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss optic and it is able to take 720p@30fps. Not forgetting that display which sets a super high standard on other Nokia device, the 3.9” WVGA (854x480) AMOLED display reinforced with their gorilla glass.

Outlook
The N9 is carved so beautifully that it wonders, why there are only one Nokia phone is design like this. The mighty 3.9” AMOLED screens shielded with gorilla glass and clear black display (CBD) just make everything look so freaking vibrant and with the removal of the outer layer glass, now your icon is seems like it is FLOATING on your screen. For the design and outlook, all I can say is, you have to see and hold it in real life. Rest assured that you will be pampered with a very classy device feel and also that exclusive feeling.

The OS and Swipe
It’s all about the swipe in this phone. You all do realize there is no home button that is because they don’t even need to include it, the swipe feature work as advertised. You are presented with 3 home screens – Events, Applications and Open Applications. Just swipe from left to right, or right to left to change screen, and by swiping up to down on an app, you are able to close them, while from down to up will open the shortcut launcher. Everything is swipe. This provides a different way of operating the phone in order to return to the home screen. Never had any lag in the swiping, unlocking the phone at first seems to be like a challenge for new users since there is nothing stating that u must swipe from edge-to-edge.

Maps

I was pampered by the Maps from Nokia that whenever I use Maps on my iPhone. I feel extremely disappointed. The Nokia Maps just keeps getting better and better with updates. I been using the GPS lately a lot for travelling and all I can say that their navigation system is freaking awesome. You just can’t believe that you are getting all of this for – FREE. I guess maybe all the other competitors can learn something from Nokia. Their Maps is so well done that you feel your GPS suddenly lack of use. Couple with their battery power of 1450mah, you can feel that this thing really last you. One thing I would one to mention if you are using GPS under direct sunlight, fear not the CBD really helps out greatly. You don’t need to adjust the brightness; everything is so crystal clear now.

[/U]Social Network
The two social networks that I would be talking about are – Facebook & Twitter. Based on week of using it, the battery lasted greatly with feeds automatic updated towards the end of the day I still have like 30 – 40% juice left in the N9. The Facebook app is by far the best in any Nokia, which is because everything just functions fluidly. There is no delay in Twitter feeds too. Comparing it with the iPhone Facebook and twitter app both timeline is on time, there is no delay whatsoever. Other than that, there is a lagging issue when there are too many friends on Facebook posting updates, that is proven with my account which have 400+ friends versus my friend who had around 800+ friends. Whenever updates come in together with her twitter, the phone tends to lag badly making the swipe gesture not responding at one point I thought it hang. Apart from that, all your logins from your Nokia, Facebook, Twitter and many other accounts are group into this app called “Accounts”. I find it kind of troublesome if there is a need to logout from Facebook, have to go to that app either disable the account or delete it. Why can’t they just have a logout button on Facebook which instantly sync with the account when we logout. Other than that, I am very happy with the Facebook which have evolved so much from Symbian.

Camera
The camera on the Nokia N9 fair pretty well under normal lighted condition, that is because it does not come equip with xenon flash for night pictures. It fares well for point and shoot actually, taking decent picture to be printed. For example, one of the forummer in Lowyat.net forum really showcase the capabilities of the camera but I can say that I prefer the camera on the Nokia N8 more although I wish the N8 have the interface like what N9 had, the interface is now upkeep to the minimal everything feels so good for the eyes, you no longer need to wade through options just to get settings done, now the icons are much more finger operation friendly.

Web Browser
Web browser is currently the highest in HTML 5 test shows 255 and 14 bonus point. This is currently the highest in every other Nokia phone. That being said, the browsing experience change significantly, everything seems to load fast and also pinch-to-zoom and other mode are now so much more lag free. The experience is certainly one of the best I ever had on the Nokia phone. Face with no issues at all when browsing website such as Youtube. Everything was smooth and responded very well.

Conclusion
If there is a time to buy a Nokia phone, this is the time. This phone has put me in a tight position between me and my iPhone on daily use. The only reason I am sticking more with the iPhone is there are so much app for it, therefore if Nokia improve in this matter they will surely fare well in this department. Obviously there are still some issues and bugs which require fine tuning but the basic of the phone is already there, and if Nokia really manage it well, this investment will surely paid off. Hope to see more apps over at the Ovi store to ensure that it is easier to attract people. Seeing Nokia rising up to the challenge surely is interesting, and from here, I can only hope for the best from them as they seem to be heading the right direction from this Nokia N9.

Written by,
Nokia Rangers.