N9 Announced: Nokia Connection 2011 Recap

Nokia’s headline announcement coming out of Nokia Connection 2011 is clearly the N9. This MeeGo 1.2 device measures 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6-12.1mm and weighs in at a mere 135 grams. Powering this device is a 1GHz single core ARM Cortex processor and 1GB of ram. Although this CPU is a tad dated the efficiency of MeeGo is noteworthy as all demos appear extremely fluid. The N9 also sports a 3.9″ WVGA 850 x 540 AMOLD display made from gorilla glass, an 8MP AF Carl Zeiss wide angle lens capturing 720p video, and NFC support. One of the most interesting features is the pentaband HSPA+ radio meaning both AT&T and TMobile customers can connect to 3G. The N9 will ship later this year at an undisclosed price in undisclosed launch regions. It is believed the United States will not be included at launch.

Frankly, the N9 looks like a very impressive device. I believe in MeeGo and think Nokia would be wise to continue development on MeeGo alongside Windows Phone 7 in the upcoming years. However, at this point Nokia has only announced one MeeGo device and therefore isn’t the most logical platform for developers. In the words of Steve Balmer, “Developers Developers Developers!”. Without a solid team of third party developers pushing applications to the N9, I can’t see the N9 taking off. Sure, it looks very appealing on paper and I can’t wait to get my hands on a review unit, but until app development grows the platform is dead on arrival.
On the side Nokia also announced the N950, a developer device running MeeGo. The N950 is very similar to the N9 with a few key difference including a full hardware QWERTY keyboard, a 4″ TFT display, an aluminium body, and a smaller battery. This device does provide a sliver of hope that developers will more quickly adopt MeeGo, however the short term outlook remains bleak. The N950 will not be commercially available.

Nokia also announced that the long awaited Symbian Anna update would be preloaded on new N8′s, E7′s, C7′s, and C6-01′s starting in July. Current users will be able to update their software in August. For a company struggling to remain relevant this slow update cycle is not helping their cause. In order for Nokia to remain significant they need a solid portfolio of hardware and software with frequent updates. At this point the Apple model of one device per year won’t work.

In ligher news the C2-03 feature phone will launch later this year with hot swappable dual SIM ports, a hardware keyboard, and a 240×320 pixel touch display. The C2-02 will ship with similar specs but a single SIM port while the C2-06 will ship in multiple colors.

Nokia announced that a Windows Phone 7 Mango device will ship later this year, with mass production in early 2012. Again, the USA is not expected to receive the new WP7 hardware at launch. In addition, Nokia will release around ten Symbian devices in the next twelve months.