Nokia N9 Announced: Packs MeeGo, 8 Megapixel Camera, and Swiping

The N9: It's not a Windows Phone.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything really worthwhile on this blog. Then again, it’s been a long time since there’s been any worthwhile Nokia news. And so, after a four-month hiatus, it’s time again to look at one of Nokia’s latest phones: the oft-rumored N9.

When we last left Nokia, the company had announced that it would be going the way of the Windows Phone, in what was probably one of the biggest deals between two of the largest tech companies out there. Nokia’s two last platforms – Symbian and MeeGo – were going to be jettisoned, in the hope that moving to Windows would give Nokia the flexibility to innovate both software and hardware. Symbian had, more or less, become a dying platform, and MeeGo wasn’t living up to its expectations as a savior for the company:

Months later, Oistämö still struggles to hold back tears. “MeeGo had been the collective hope of the company,” he says, “and we’d come to the conclusion that the emperor had no clothes. It’s not a nice thing.”
(BusinessWeek)

But the release of the N9 proves that maybe, just maybe, MeeGo isn’t completely done for.

Let’s start with the specs. Nokia isn’t pulling any punches here with the N9 (which honestly looks like an iPod Nano mixed with an N8), a candy bar that sports a 3.9-inch AMOLED display, 8 megapixel camera (featuring Carl Zeiss optics), HD video recording, Gorilla glass, and NFC support. It runs MeeGo 1.2. It also looks (granted, this is from the promo video) smooth as hell, with an interface that looks, for once, slightly ahead of the curve.

Gone are the Home buttons (hardware or software) of yesteryear. Nokia’s touting the simplicity of the N9 over everything, in that all it takes is just a simple swipe. Swipe to scroll, swipe to move through your home screens, and even swipe to minimize your applications. And speaking of the home screens, you’ve got three of them here: your application launcher, your multitask view (similar to the N900′s), and finally, your notification page which shows missed calls and social media updates.

Everything about the N9 looks impressive – too impressive, maybe. What’s Nokia’s doing here? They’ve cast aside MeeGo for Windows Phone, but put the spotlight back with a hell of a device. I don’t quite get it. But I have to hand it to Nokia: the first release candidate of MeeGo (1.1) looked nothing like this. I’m amazed that it got this far.

Unfortunately, there’s no talk about price or availability (yet), other than the generic “The Nokia N9 is scheduled to be in stores later this year, with availability and local pricing to be announced closer to the sales start.”

Nokia Drops the Bomb: Plans to Use Windows Phone as Main Platform

Nokia dropped a bombshell announcement today.It’s the beginning of a new era for Nokia: the company announced a “strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a global mobile ecosystem based on highly complementary assets.” That means that yes, Nokia will be adopting Windows Phone for future smartphones. But it’s more than that: the partnership means that Nokia will also integrate its current apps with Microsoft products, while Microsoft will bring its developer tools to the table.Is it the right move? And what about Symbian and MeeGo? Details inside.The move wasn’t completely unexpected. Nokia could have taken three possible routes for its smartphone line: MeeGo, Android, or Windows Phone. Actually, going full steam ahead with MeeGo probably would have sounded a death knell for the company, considering how ridiculously late to the game it would have been released. So the shift would be either to an Android or Windows Phone platform, and I think most people assumed that it would be the former, despite Stephen Elop’s previous high-level position at Microsoft. (for the record, I certainly did)But if Nokia’s stock price today was anything to go by, investors were definitely expecting some other news. Shares of Nokia fell 14% on the news.Meanwhile, the jump from one OS to another leads to some big questions, namely about Symbian and MeeGo.Symbian’s future is pretty obvious: Nokia’s press release says that the company will turn it into a “franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value.” My translation: they’re going to suck it dry. It makes sense, considering that Symbian is clearly on its last legs (or already on the ground, depending on how you look at it).As for MeeGo, its role isn’t quite as well defined:Under the new strategy, MeeGo becomes an open-source, mobile operating system project. MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year.This of course came on the news that Nokia had already dropped its next MeeGo phone.Sound decision or not, the real winner here is Microsoft. With millions of Nokia Windows Phone devices slated to release sometime in the future, worldwide, it now has a fighting chance to level the playing field against the likes of Android and iOS.Press ReleaseNokia drops new Meego phone, bemoans plight – Reuters

Nokia C5-05 price in India, S60 5th Edition smart Phone Review, Feature and Specifications

Nokia C5-05 price in India. Nokia Company launched a new Nokia C5-05 smart phone with decent feature and specifications. The phone is working on Quad band GSM network. The dimension of the phone is 105.8 x 51 x 13.8 mm and weight 93 gram. It has 3.2 inches of touch screen display that produce bright color with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. The phone is running on Symbian S60 operating system and equipped with GPS receiver which helps the user to find a location with preinstalled Ovi map and get a free life time license of navigation. The 2.0 Mega Pixels of camera is present in smart phone, which helps to capture impressive quality images.

Nokia C5-05 comes packed with 40 MB of internal memory and its swappable external memory can be expanded up to 16 GB through microSD card slot. On multimedia front of view it has audio/video player which support MP4, Mp3, 3GP, WMA format, stereo FM radio. Additional specifications of the phone include Bluetooth, USB, WAP, USB charging and others. The 100 mAh BL-4U battery provides a long power backup.

Nokia C5-05 Review, Feature and Specifications

Network Band: Quad band GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Operating System: S60 5th Edition Symbian

Display Screen Size: 3.2 inches
Display Resolution: 640 x 360 pixels
Display Type: Resistive TFT touch screen
Camera Size: 2.0 mega pixels
Internal memory: 40 MB
Expandable memory: Supports up to 16 GB
MicroSD card slot
Internet Connectivity: GPRS/EDGE
Data Transfer Connectivity: Bluetooth v2.1 with EDR, micro USB v 2.0
Easy charging with USB
Stereo FM radio
3.5 mm Audio connector Jack
GPS with Integrated A-GPS receiver
Ovi Maps with free lifetime navigation licence
Video Format Support: MPEG-4, H.264, 3GPP: H.263
Audio Format Support: AAC, eAAC, .mp3, eAAC+ and WMA
Battery Model: BL-4U 1000 mAh
Standby time: up to 25 days
Talk time: up to 11.5 hours
Video play backup: 7.5 hours
Audio play backup: 35 hours
Dimensions: 105.8 x 51 x 13.8 mm
Weight: 93 grams
Nokia C5-05 price in India is expected near to Rs. 14099/-