Nokia N9 Unlocked GSM Phone with 64 GB Internal Memory--International Version (Black)

The Nokia N9 is a fantastic phone. Probably the best phone hardware I've ever used, running the best mobile OS I've ever used. I'm quite familiar with Android, Symbian, iOS, and Windows Phone 7.5 (and presumably WinPho8, since that's supposed to be a 'refinement', not a complete OS change). I've also used many different types of hardware, from plasticky Samsungs to aluminum Nokias to glass/aluminum iPhones/iPods to mishmash Motorolas and Sony Ericssons. This...is the best one to have in the hand, to look at, to rub against your cheek...not that I ever did such a thing. -Hardware- It's made of plastic. But not the cheap kind Samsung like to use with their Galaxy phones. Instead, it's a single piece of machined, high-grade matte polycarbonate - the same kind used in F22 jet fighters - that's colored all the way through, so even deep scratches won't show up as discolorations. The front of the device is devoid of any buttons, leaving you with a piece of convex Corning Gorilla Glass that is so beautifully integrated into the shell, it looks like it's been melted on. The bottom right corner sports the front-facing camera (strange position, but presumably, Nokia want you to video chat in landscape, like a normal computer monitor), and the bottom left has a breathing light to tell you when it's charging. At the top center, you have a silvery Nokia logo, next to which is the proximity and light sensor. Above them, in the polycarbonate shell, is the earpiece. That's all you have on the front. On the right side of the phone, you have the volume rocker and lock/power buttons, all shiny chrome. The bottom houses the speaker grill and microphone. The left side is a barren expanse, and the top is where you'll find the covered USB plug, headphone jack, and microSIM tray. The back has a lovely centered chrome plate containing the 8.7 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens and engraved Nokia logo, next to which is the dual LED flash. Nokia took minimalism to a whole new level with this phone. The screen itself is a comfortable 3.9", which is big enough to type on in portrait and small enough to use with one hand. It doesn't have as sharp a display as, say, the iPhone 5 (326 ppi compared with 251 ppi), but its AMOLED ClearBlack Display technology ramps up the contrast to near infinite, something that cannot be said of the iPhone's LCD display. The blacks are so...black...that it's almost impossible to tell where the screen ends and the bezel begins until you add some color, and that's on any brightness. The colors are bright and in your face, the curved glass lending to the effect that the icons are floating on the screen. That contrast between colors adds to this phone being usable even in bright sunlight, something we have in surplus here in Texas! One thing that I can say is a bit distracting at times is the PenTile pixel arrangement, as on the Samsung Galaxy SIII. Put simply, the pixels are arranged in such a way that it looks almost as if a very fine mesh were over the screen. It's not terrible, but once in a while, you notice it, and it's impossible to un-notice it for a while after that. On white screens, you might be able to see a pixel-wide vertical magenta stripe on the left edge, and a mirrored (green) stripe on the right. Other than that niggling issue, all is well. Inside, you'll find a 1GHz TI single-core processor backed by 1GB RAM and dedicated GPU, which, due to optimization of the OS itself, makes the phone go about its business like a greased weasel. It also boasts Nokia's signature pentaband antennae, with support for nearly all GSM networks you care to come across in your travels, including T-Mobile and AT&T here in the States. NFC is a nice touch, enabling you to transfer files and such or pair Bluetooth devices with a simple tap (much as Samsung want you to think they invented it, it's been around much longer than the SIII has). As other reviews have stated, however, the battery isn't phenomenal. I'm a pretty heavy user, and I've been able to deplete the battery in less than a day. That said, I was outside much of the time, so the brightness was always up (a battery killer on OLED screens), plus push notifications and all that good stuff. Another thing is the loudspeaker. It's...ok. My last phone was a Nokia N8, and that had a great loudspeaker, if a bit tinny at times. The N9, though, suffers a bit. Unlike the N8, the N9's sound can't be muffled by simply placing a finger over the speaker grill, which is a plus. Instead, it feels as if the sound is coming out of the entire bottom 1/3 of the device. Calls on speaker are adequate, but music and movies? Get some headphones. The buttons on the right side do feel a bit jiggly, but aren't about to fall out of the device. If you use the provided rubbery case (which adds about a millimeter extra girth, probably less), you won't notice that slight wobbling at all. The ambient light sensor is rather eager, sometimes overly so. It's easy to convince the phone that nighttime approaches simply by holding a hand a foot away and blocking the brightest light source. -Software- You've heard of iOS, Android, Windows Phone, WebOS, and Blackberry OS. You may have even heard of Tizen and Bada and Symbian. Ever heard of MeeGo? Probably not, and that's because there is only one mass-produced MeeGo phone currently in existence: the Nokia N9. Quite simply, it is superb. It's a joint effort by Intel and Nokia on an open Linux kernel to create the most intuitive and simple mobile OS in the world. I think it worked. All you do...is swipe. Wake the screen up with a double-tap, then swipe the screen from the bottom to the top. Switch homescreens with a swipe from left to right or vice versa. Put an app aside by swiping from the bottom, or close it by swiping down from the top. In an app, swipe up from the bottom and hold it halfway up for a second - you get the launcher with commonly used apps (phone, messages, camera, and web are the default; they can be changed with an app). Everything is fast, smooth, and easy. When you start the phone up, you're greeted with the main homescreen - a grid of apps. Scroll up and down - no explanation necessary. Swipe from the right and you get a screen of open apps displayed as live cards. Yes, this is true multitasking. You can minimize apps and stare at them in this homescreen as they go about their respective duties. I've had map downloads, app downloads, installations, and web pages loading all at the same time, and simply watched them go on this screen. From here, you can long-press any app to display little red X's to close them individually, or select the Close All option at the bottom. Simple. Swipe right to left again. This is the last homescreen, displaying notifications. Everything goes in here - SMS messages, Facebook notifications, RSS feeds, emails, tweets, calendar events, etc. It's all organized like the normal Facebook news feed, with messages and emails at the top, separated from the rest. Above them all, the time, date, and weather. Swipe right to left again, and you're back to the main app grid. Nowadays, most people seem obsessed with the number of apps in any given OS ecosystem, and I do get it to some degree. With iOS and Android (WinPho is catching up), you have apps for everything. Literally. With MeeGo...not so much. However, if you can't find something in the Nokia Store, you can hop onto the interwebs and get something there. Kindle? Done. iBooks? Done. YouTube? Done. Dropbox? Done. Google Reader? Done. Evernote? Done. Pandora? Well...not quite. Spotify is available, though, as is a great internet radio app from Nokia. Whatsapp? Done. Instagram? Done. Facebook, Twitter, Skype? Already integrated so well, you can call someone via VoIP, or send them a Facebook message, or chat with GTalk...all from the contact card. Facebook messages and SMS messages go to a unified inbox, so it's easy to switch back and forth depending on how you want to communicate. As was also mentioned in another review, the MeeGo community of developers is amazing. To quote a certain blog, "It would seem the Meego community doesn't like being left out of anything; either that or when they hear an app developer say 'No, we don't have any plans at the moment', that translates into 'I dare you to do it yourself'." And it's quite true. Dead platform? I don't think so. There are many talented developers out there who know what this phone can do, and are willing to devote their time and energy into making it do it, usually for free. Small touches on this OS show how much thought went into making it. In standby, the AMOLED has softly-lit pixels displaying the time, using up next to no energy (there is an app that allows you to edit what that screen says - date, battery info, network connections, etc.). Double-tap the screen to wake it up. New message/email/voicemail/missed call? Slide that notification to the side, and it opens it up directly. Need to put it on vibrate? Tap the top (where you would slide down with Android/Symbian/iOS) and hit Silent. Playing music from your collection? Hit the options button and get recommendations based on what you're listening to that open in Nokia Music (no USA option, but you can access the one from the UK!). -Overview (tl;dr)- Drop-dead gorgeous and sturdy hardware matched to equally beautiful and hardy software make this phone a true delight to use every day. You will be noticed if you have this phone. Take it to a T-Mobile or AT&T store, I dare you. Some claim this phone is limited by lack of apps. I say - you didn't look hard enough. This phone may not be for the average user who loves games or toting specs. Instead, it's for the real power users, those who are sick of iOS and Android, or don't want a phone everyone else and their dog has. This phone has much to offer, limited only by the imagination of its fan base. Oh, and...first thing to do when you get it: Update to PR 1.3! *Small Update* -I just realized this, so I figured I'd add it on: you can tether quite easily with this phone, even if you don't have a tethering plan. Now, when you choose the US as the region, it blocks it. Just download an app like SpotOn and there you go - instant tether! -I also wanted to mention...that shiny chrome plate on the back? I'd have to say that's the only design flaw on this phone, because even though it looks great at first, it attracts scratches. Since it's right there on convex curve of the rear of the device, it rests there. Drag it across any hard surface and there are scratches. So even though this phone is too pretty to put in a case, you should definitely do something about it. The included case fits perfectly, and raises the chrome plate off the resting surface slightly, so that's a possible solution. -Another thing: be careful when you're charging the phone or when it's hooked up to the computer. The little plastic door covering the USB port isn't as tough as the rest of the phone, and I have the feeling that it's going to be the first thing to go for many people. -Remember how I said it's for power users? I forgot to mention Developer Mode! Just go into Settings, then Security, then Developer Mode, and toggle it on. It'll download a few things to help you get started, then you're free to mess around till your heart's content! And if you happen to brick the thing, flash the open source software (you can get it from Nokia directly) and you're good to go at it again. Truly a versatile phone.

Whenever i take/place a call, the incoming/outgoing call voice has a low background noise. But if i switch over that same call to speaker option i wont hear any disturbance.

I bought this phone after seeing some demos online and seeing the intuitive UI that it had. All you have to do is swipe, swipe to the left to put your app to side and multitask. Picked this up and started to learn within minutes, simple and designed for one handed operation. The UI was way ahead of it's time in execution, saw BB with a similar UI for their QNX OS BB OS ver. 10, a definite nod to Nokia's MAEMO OS for the N9. What I liked about the phone is the built in native features, RSS feed, GPS maps online and offline thanks to Nokia's awesome Navteq, internet radio, camera etc. only thing I didn't like about this phone is the email client. It seems to eventually 'stop working' on POP3 mail accounts. I kept wiping the phone and it works from the start but eventually stops syncing mails with "error contacting server". Really disappointing since i have it over a year now. I still highly recommend this phone, lots of built in apps, works with all carriers in the US. Apps are not plentiful, but they have a handful available at the OVI store. I liked the phone until the email client started flaking out...

I've owned the N9 for about two months now and am extremely happy with it. The more I use Meego, the more I like it. My tablet has Android ICS and I thought it was great, but Meego is far cleaner. It's also extremely intuitive. I didn't need to learn anything to use this phone. The Swipe feature is similar to the PalmOS Swipe and is a highlight of this phone. It's so easy to move between and close program. The N9 is also very fast with a responsive screen and many programs can be open at once without slowing down the phone. The build quality of the phone is great. It feels like it's all one piece. The screen curves into the case. The screen is vibrant and speaker is crisp. Calls go through with one try and I haven't had any dropped calls. The battery seems to last a long time for my purposes - the battery is still about 3/4 full after 16 hours of usage (I charge it overnight). I estimate my usage as follows per day - 10 minutes talk time, 6 hours playing music, checking email several times a day, 10 texts, a few minutes on the internet, and a few minutes of game play. I check email and Facebook manually. The N9 is a pentaband phone so it works with both ATT and TMobile 3G. It requires a micro sim card, but I just stopped by my local Tmobile store and they gave me a micro sim for free. I was also able to set the phone so that it automatically uses WiFi while I'm at home and 3G while I'm out. One of the most important features to me was the music player and I am very happy with the N9's player. The sound quality is great and I've even heard new things in my music that I hadn't heard with other players. With 64GB of space, I was able to fit all the music I need on the player, with lots of room to spare. I wish this phone had a memory card slot too, but with 64GB of space, I haven't come anywhere close to needing one. Also, if you have an older Nokia in-line music controller that came with a Symbian phone, it will work with the N9's player. The camera is good too. It's easy to share pictures on Facebook or send them as an MMS. The image quality is acceptable, but I'm picky about cameras. It works well for taking pictures of random things I see when I'm out. Swiping through pictures to view them is fast too. I downloaded an app that takes panoramic photos, which is fun to use. I am happy with the selection of apps available on the Nokia Store. It's no where near as extensive as the apps available for iPhone or Android, but it has the essentials - QR code reader, hot spot creator, call recorder, translator, Angry Birds, Opera Mobile, and more. You might want to browse the Nokia Store before purchasing the phone to make sure there are enough apps to suit your needs. While this phone isn't popular in the US, it seems to be popular throughout Europe and Asia, so new apps are still being created. There are a few of downsides to this phone. My previous phone was a Nokia N97, which ran Symbian. Symbian could be customized much more than Meego. I was disappointed that the N9 comes with only 3 profiles, without the ability to create more. I was also disappointed that the Nokia Suite that I used with my N97, could not be used with the N9. Without the Nokia Suite, there is no easy way to back up text messages on the N9, like there was with Nokias running Symbian. The last downside is that Nokia does not make a US version of this phone (like it does for other phones like the N97). I ordered directly from Amazon and my phone was branded with a "Starhub" logo and included "Starhub" apps. I researched "Starhub" and it's a mobile provider in Indonesia. I almost sent the phone back because of this, but decided to give it a try anyway. I kept it because despite its shortcomings, as I grew to love this phone. Overall, this is a great phone and I definitely recommend it. It's a very unique phone and it's too bad that Meego hasn't taken off. I still think it surpasses Android with its simplicity and beauty. It's not for everyone, but it's worth giving it a chance if it sounds interesting to you.