video player
menu of videos available is portrait only. playback is landscape only.... rotating for this sucks as there is no next or previous video while playing. has an options in the phone settings to play at original size/aspect, or to full screen it. and by full screen they mean horizontally fill it, not vertically, so you get stretched picture and not aspect ratio scaled footage as you would expect. you can pinch the screen during playback to change between this. volume controls remain the same as if in portrait and for me it feels a little wrong that when in landscape that the left volume rocker is up volume and the right is down volume. considering the volume slider on the screen (which you cant slide yourself) goes in the opposite direction of the rocker you press... ummm....
options are slim pickings here. bringing up the only menu pauses the video to share/rename/delete. tapping the video information takes you to a page similar to the music player.. also pauses playing. could keep the audio at least.
tapping the screen while playing brings up the seek bar, but no onscreen controls. just a play pause. tapping the playing video can pause sometimes. when video ends it goes to the video selection menu (portrait)
the dolby soundscapes demo really shows off the sound if you have phones on. impressive.
when putting the n9 down and having a video running (no kickstand) you can really notice the colour change of the screen from different angles. that blue/green tinge it gets is *very* obvious.
720 playback is rubbish. do not even attempt it. youtube ripped 480 mp4s looks sharp as nails. refresh rate is super. colours are rich... when looking straight on. this all may be good. but playing the same video on the htc desire the screen looks better than the n9. the n9 is black as black but the picture is better on the htc. i dont understand. is this the pentapixel showing it head? i played with the brightness on the n9 but no luck matching it the 18 months old desire.
because no 360deg rotation of desktop/playback.. the headphone jack needs to be moved to the top right corner. its in a shite location when playing landscape movies with headphones on and holding with left hand.
all the hype about dragging the screen while a movie is playing and still seeing it playing is a con. as soon as it minimises to the multitask screen it pauses. it again could continue to play the audio at least!
verdict : it plays videos. it does that. wont play all out of the box. hoping some codecs in the future. 720p is terrible if it plays at all. needs a lot of functionality added... battery usage is impressive! plays forever!


camera
it works. touch focus, facial recognition. gps and stuff. usual settings.
video works too. dont really use the camera for much
flash/light seems a lot weaker than the n900
gallery could be more functional but comes with some basic editing tools. ui needs serious improvements. i believe the camera and gallery are getting an overhaul for pr1.2 ?


web browser
the best for last, and probably the shortest. its fast. its compatible. who needs flash anyway? youtube works perfectly. google maps DID NOT WORK on the full web version. you could pinch but not scroll around. completely wrecked the browser! gmail too. hotmail seemed to have a few issues but resolved itself somehow and could pinch zoom and all the rest. funny. every webpage i have ever been to seem to work fine on n900 browser. have never had an issue.
now. the bad things. the browser is ****. no settings at all. none. cant hide the url bar to add screen realestate. comes directly from iphone but worse. n900 browser may be dated, but damn it is controllable and a whole lot friendlier. i remember in all the videos there was a lot of hype over the n9 browser. its not even as good as the not updated in 2 years n900 browser. how could this happen with all the browser development out there? hello chrome and gecko!
verdict : go with a gecko based browser, quickly.


overall problems
built in system app themes change regularly, nothing is visually consistant. the many themes used that change regularly throughout seem poorly thought through. take a look at n900, android or iphone. visually reliable in identification and recognition, this enhances usability and intuitiveness.
that back arrow on the bottom is ugly. menus should be treated like pages in a book. swipe the screen back to go back. saves disjointed movement and finger mileage. the save and cancel at the top? what? maemo5 did naviagion better?
apps that jump to other apps are very disjointed. with the above two issues it makes navigating a real mess and the user can feel a little out of control.
a serious lack of room for personalisation much like the famous iphone.
no apps have settings. completely out of control. serious lack of settings and controls in the device settings. i should be in control of this phone, but it controls me.
apps need to have a menu that has settings you can change directly rather than having to go into device settings. ie the clock app you cant change the time... would need a menu so you can edit the time, time zone/region, day, date, analogue, digital... cmon, the basics the n900 did perfectly.
some apps are full screen. some apps leave the battery meter and time visible. the bar at the top is tiny. keep it visible. messages app keeps it visible for a moment when rotated too... yes, you can swipe down a little to see it if you wanted.. but i like to know what my phone is doing while im doing things. when the bar is not visible you no longer have the ability to touch to do things.
needs to be a consistant way to bring up a search bar...
when swiping down to close the only app running, it should take you to the app icons page.. not the empty multitasking screen.. lol. i have to swipe twice to run something
so many issues with how the ui does things. when you are on the multitasking apps screen and you tap on something to bring it up. it drops it to the back removing it from the tasks screen, shuffling the rest and then it slides from the side into view. it only takes 1 second or less, but its painfully slow to watch. and depending which way you swiped to get to the tasks screen depends which side the task when clicked will slide onto the screen. n900 if you click on a multitasking app it maximises it to full screen in a nothing fancy transition. simple and feels responsively faster.
the status bar at the top should be the location for the sytem/app settings. although its not intrusive in the slightest it could be a swipe up to hide, down to view, and it could be an overlay (always on top) in which you control the transparency level and transparency colour.
must have a setting to hide that feed screen. or atleast make it better as i have mentioned earlier
ui is lacking in what the phone is actually doing. usb is in.. nowhere easy to see or find do you know the usb is in and wht its doing. no icons anywhere. delve into settings > accessories (what the...) > usb. this will tell you here its currentl ycharging via usb. cant change the mode to charge only/mass storage/syng from here either. this needs to be on the top tap menu, as does the battery app. so much more can be done with that top tap bar to enhance control.

for a device thats sold at THE premium price, technically aimed at all the n900 fans albeit with no keyboard, it feels like its been aimed for android fans but designed for kids because it feels more like a toy than a tool. n900 by comparison feels like a powerful brick. the n9 lacks the intuitiveness.
the hardware is pretty average for whats out there already and they cost less too. you had better be okay with what i have written when you shell out for a meego n9.
for all the time they spent writing harmatten it feels like it was knocked out in a very short time. meego needs work and they are well aware of this by rolling out the updates which is great. the apps that come with it are immature and in a primal state considering all the developement nokia has already done over the years, and with the n900 under its belt it makes no sense to have such a release in such condition. plenty of resources and experience and it all came to this. many apps need redevelopement or replacement. this squarely indicates where nokia is and has been at for the last few years, and why they are failing in market share. meego was their real future but because of past mistakes it could no longer take the meego path without facing possible extinction. it just wasnt worth the risk to them when it is fairly obvious there *is* no risk that is not already been taken.

i often wonder if it is possible to put the n900 UI on the n9. that would completely own. the gpu is the same. the cpu is the same... some slight changes. surely ? i would do that in an instant. i understand that n900 maemo apps have some trouble porting to meego, a meego problem ?

final verdict : i love the look and feel of the n9, but no keyboard is a kick to the nuts. would a keyboard have made my experience with harmatten better? probably. but not by much. it may be on newer and better hardware when compared to the n900, but the n900 did it so much better in so many ways. i am extremely torn between waiting for the n9 to catch up ground and sort out some of these issues and get some developement behind it, or sell it and keep using my n900. i have had the n9 for 15 days and have ported my calendar and contacts and a bunch of data over as i would be regularly using on my n9. i am doing on the n9 what i would be doing on the primary n900 where possible so this has been a good test.
there are a *LOT* of things i like about the n9/meego. some great new ideas and features...dont get me wrong.
i am extremely happy with the battery life on the n9. gps routing, browsing, messaging via services, music and movie playing and all the rest. lasts days.
the lock screen idea is brilliant. double tap to bring it up, swipe to go. that screen alone can be really powerful if utilised right. but answering calls while in locked state is very bad. needs to have a red reject at the top and a green answer at the bottom. swipe down to reject, swipe up to answer. currently its extra non intuitive work to answer calls and handles poorly.
the feed screen needs to go. that feed screen should be an app you multitask with, its really what it is anyway. lose it. calls and messages should act exactly like the n900 and multitask the messages or calls app to show missed or waiting viewing, as it does on the lock screen. lock screen should show weather updates and calendar events too, of course with more controls added.
and i am also not having any of the issues that people are discussing on this board. no lost passwords or accounts.. however there seems to be somethigng with the calendar where it constantly forgets that i have set monday as the first day of the week. always returns to sunday... odd. and to change this have to delve well into the settings as the calendar app has no settings at all... yes, apps have no settings to control them is a BIG problem.

i am serious when i say that meego can be absolutely powerful and smarter than android, with more intuitiveness. meego has the responsiveness of a f1 race car on half the specs. it wont outshine the epically rounded ios in a hurry but it can certainly easily do everything it can do. meego just doesnt. yet. i have hope. empty hope.
i would love to be able to give input in UI functionality and QA testing somehow. i am very good at both. i would take the time to screenshot and draw up how the ui could be made a lot better for futher input and discussion from there. a little work and it would be on its way to being absolutely killer. but no doubt it will all fall on deaf ears.

this has been an epic post. i must apologise for any offence caused. i hope this causes some positive discussion towards change. thanks anyone for reading this far.