Rich Fiscus
27 Sep 2011 9:36
The Nokia N9 MeeGo smartphone announced back in June has begun shipping.
The N9 occupies a somewhat strange position in Nokia's smartphone lineup since it doesn't run either Nokia's legacy smartphone OS, Symbian, or their OS of the future, Windows Phone. In fact it's a relic of plans Nokia has all but abandoned, to get back to the top of the smartphone market with an OS of their own.
MeeGo is a Linux-based OS which resulted from a partnership of Nokia and Intel. It was created through a fusion of Nokia's Maemo with Intel's Moblin.
When Nokia announced their partnership with Microsoft to develop Windows Phones, it appeared to be the death knell for MeeGo.
Unfortunately, with a bunch of money already spent on development, Nokia was left with little choice about releasing the N9.
While it doesn't feature a bleeding edge processor or the biggest screen in the industry, the hardware is quite respectable. It has a 1GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, a 3.9" Gorilla Glass display & 8MPx camera with a Carl Zeiss lense and LED flash.
Despite that, the reality is there probably won't be much of a market for the N9. With one or more new iPhones and Windows Phones from Nokia expected next month, it's hard to see what the appeal of a one off MeeGo phone would be.