So after patiently waiting 6 years, I'm taking the plunge and getting an N9. My wife will be in China and I can get a fully refurbished (new battery, housing and screen) N9 with box and accessories for about $45. She agreed!

When the N9 came out, I was using my N8 purchased the year prior and couldn't easily justify getting one. I then moved on to a Lumia 920 and now I use a Lumia 640 XL.

So my question is: When I get my Nokia N9 in a couple weeks (it will be a spare phone/complete toy) what works and what doesn't?

I've heard the app store is shut down? Is this true? How is web browsing? Any advice? I'm still excited to be owning one and love its design and historical impact on future phones.

You will need https://openrepos.net/content/ancelad/n9-repomirror
There have been problems implementing with just a few firmwares however.

For Store replacement use Warehouse:https://openrepos.net/content/basil/warehouse

Browsing not likely to be good experience as some security certificates sure to have lapsed by now.

For me browsing with Firefox is still mostly usable. It's a bit dated so expect slowness and for some websites not to work correctly. NoScript (https://noscript.net/nsa/ -- Firefox 4 Mobile version) recommended to use with that browser.

I am curious about this version. Where did you get it? I haven't used my N9 (outside of curious playing around) for some years. But it tells me I have version 15, installed 6/30/12 (off of the OVI store for sure). I wonder if your version runs better.

You are correct that fennec_15.0 is the last available version, if you point Firefox browser upon N9 to given link it will install an add-on extension which gives extra protection by creating "Classic Whitelist".

I'm using the same Firefox version.

ED: missing word

OK, I was confused by the earlier reference to "Firefox 4 Mobile". Thanks.

Congratulations - brave choice. Hopefully your wife will bring you the genuine N9 and not the fake double-SIM one.

You can have a lot of useful stuff working provided that you spend some time on configuration. That includes Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, dropbox and many many more, just like in modern smartphones.

Fortunately all necessary procedures are well documented here at talk.maemo.

Should you need advise on "must-have" apps, feel free to PM me.

@prosper, I would pm you, but I can't. I would like to know essential apps and where to get them (by installing links provided by @aspergerguy??)! Also, a quick question (to anyone), does Chinese firmware limit functionality or is it mostly a customization limitation because it's unable to flash other firmware?

I will just quickly point you to a post I made a year ago:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...73&postcount=5

Most things still apply. Only AGTL doesn't work anymore at all.
Also to add to it: Billboard, FileCase and QRadio is also very nice


You can get most of these apps from openrepos, use the warehouse client: https://openrepos.net/content/basil/warehouse

For some you have to trick the certificate system, because of expired certificates. Do this like so:
Search the app which fails in warehouse, open it, don't click on install yet.
Switch to clock, set time to 2012 or something which works
Click the install button and reset the clock to current date when the software is installed.
(You can't browse openrepos with the date that far back, because your N9 will think its certificate is not yet valid)

If you need links to applications not on warehouse, ask here. I will take a look again tomorrow, when I have more time.