I was initially skeptical about whether I'd like the N9. After so much wait, the device that is supposed to be everything we were waiting far too long for will actually be here soon. I just hope it doesn't end up like Duke Nukem Forever.

First things first, the design. While initially unimpressive, reading more about it, you can see that removing the keyboard was more than an arbitrary decision, and it allows the device to be more portrait-mode centric as well as more aesthetic. The 8MP camera was disappointing compared to the 12MP on the N8, but this was a size issue and they didn't skimp on the camera - it is fast and can do 4:3 and 16:9 photos better than any phone out there. The subtler touches like the curved gorilla glass screen show that this was a phone whose software and hardware were made together, not apart. The inclusion of 1GB of RAM shows that they are committed to multi-tasking.

Now the only things that strike me as wrong with the device are that it doesn't have HDMI (which I wouldn't really plan on using, but its nice to have) and the radio transmitter/receiver which didn't get any love though hardware or software. Neither of these are dealbreakers for me.

What bothers me a lot is the fact that far too many people are talking about Alien Dalvik as though its some kind of savior to the platform. Its not. In fact, it should never touch the device as anything more than an interesting tech demo. Nokia said that they didn't want to go with Android just to be "pissing their pants to keep warm." They have their own ecosystem around their devices, going Google would only hurt them. This phone already has a Maemo/Meego personality disorder, I don't want people to be calling it an Android phone just because it would be easier than explaining Alien Dalvik to them. This is the first Meego phone (read: Meego compatible). For better or worse, it will define the platform. I don't want the platform to be described as "just like Android" or worse, categorized as a flavor of Android. If Nokia wanted to make a custom interface for Android, they could've and it would've taken them a lot less time to get it to the market. But there would be far less brand loyalty. The only Android device line I really see people being loyal to is the Droid/Droid2/Droid2 Global/Droid3 and that's because that's one of the few lines that takes a keyboard seriously.

Through this, Nokia's WP7 jump makes more sense. Win or lose, WP7 has a chance, not for being the same as everything else, but for being different. That said, I won't look into getting a WP7 device, even one of the super special fun fruits of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership because it can't suit what I want. I want a toy, a device that I can really mess with because I will, a device that supports playing Matroska Video files as well as FLAC a GNU/Linux phone that doesn't call a terminal where you can use the GNU tools as well as any other command line program an afterthought.

This is the second device of its kind, the N900 was the first and we must praise its legacy as a device more successful than was intended. But we also have to move past its failings. Unlike multiple desktops, the swipe ui of the N9 forces you to always be able to get where you want in 2 swipes and a click at most. Folders (will) make program grouping faster to go through than a desktop experience would. Widgets are pretty, but the only problem they solve is information aggregation, and the only aggregation part is the fact that you can have more than one widget on the screen at a time. If you really wanted to specifically have widgets on the screen, a plugin-based app that even scrolls through virtual desktops wouldn't even be that difficult, but that's not even the point. Widgets, particularly on Android also solve the problem that it can't do true multitasking. This phone was specifically made to be able to do multitasking in a way no other phone can claim it can. You can get all the information you're looking for, again, with at most 2 swipes and a click, and it will be instant. There will be no waiting for the app to load because its already loaded (its to the point where I'm pretty sure they recommended somewhere to leave the camera app open so you can take pictures faster). No hiding the fact that on other platforms you'd need to open and close several programs.

Finally, this is an open device. It is using GNU/Linux in a traditional way full of all the newest things. I say "GNU/Linux" not for being someone you affectionately call a "neckbeard," but because its not Android, where the fact that it uses Linux is irrelevant to any use of the device, where it doesn't use the current tried and true method of displaying graphics X.org, it uses a framebuffer. It doesn't use native programs or tookits, it runs things in a (hopefully well optimized) virtual machine using their own drawing apis. The N9 is a Linux phone that isn't ashamed of being a Linux phone, with both appeal as a physical device as well as a piece of software running on that device.

I just hope that this device will in fact be as nice as it looks now. I hope that it sells well enough that people will take it seriously as a platform. I hope it is met with enough praise that it will have a true successor at some point, whether that comes from Nokia or somewhere else. Nokia has taken the path less traveled with this device, and that makes all the difference.