Nokia has already decided to put all its weight behind Microsoft's Windows Phone as its primary mobile platform, but today the company has nonetheless announced its first MeeGo-based smartphone. Dubbed Nokia N9, the device comes with a curved unibody design and a 3.9-inch AMOLED display with an 854 x 480 resolution. There are no front-facing buttons at all; instead, Nokia has implemented a swipe feature for switching between screens and functions.
Under the hood you'll find a 1GHz TI OMAP 3630 with PowerVR SGX530 graphics (the same chip inside the original Droid X, the Droid 2, and Pre 2), 1GB of RAM, 16GB or 64GB of storage, front-facing camera for video conferencing and a rear 8MP camera with 720p video recording. In terms of connectivity, Nokia is touting this as a world phone with support for 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 GSM/EDGE bands, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even NFC capabilities.
The N9 will be available in three colors – black, cyan, and magenta-- but so far details such as pricing and availability have been omitted. Nokia has previously suggested they would have a MeeGo product in the market by end of 2011.
The phone does look intriguing and at least when it comes to hardware and build quality Nokia usually delivers. But the problem is, of course, its software. Earlier this year Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop famously declared that the company was standing on a "burning platform" and had fallen years behind competitors' sleekness and usability.
Eventually the company reached a landmark deal with Microsoft to use Windows Phone on its future handsets, announcing at a later date that it would outsource the aging Symbian OS, and leave MeeGo as an open-source mobile operating system project with increased emphasis on longer-term 'market exploration' of next-generation devices.
Considering all this, investing your hard-earned cash in MeeGo doesn't seem like the smartest move when even Nokia isn't going to. If you like the phone, though, the Finnish company has said that the DNA of the N9 "will live on in a variety of ways." We know Nokia was granted exclusive customization rights to Windows Phone 7 to differentiate itself within the ecosystem, so we'll see if they pull something special for their first WP7 handset later this year.