One can iron out some critical minuses away with UI with SwipeManager0.0.3 and Organiser Feed.
Personally I have swipe down close, swipe left/right task switcher and swipe up application list. This way I always know where I'll end up when I swipe out from the program.
With Organiser Feed I have that pretty much useless screen in a use it'd been on my N900 and DesireZ anyway. I just wish you could add email, messages and phone launch icons on it.

I agree on many points and settings especially are a mess on N9. I disagree many usability things, such as call cancelling in the lockscreen; you might accidentally swipe it close when digging the ringing phone from your pockets.
Definitely agree on good points such as lousy lower left back icon which should've not existed at all in the first place, and adding more swipe to the application's UIs instead.

Portrait mode only seems to be the way in Android-land too nowadays, unless you use custom roms.

Clock & alarms: you're right. A world clock is absolutely missing.
Contacts: right again. Should be way more customizable.
Messages: why isn't it even possible to save drafts?
Web browser: no text rescaling (believe that's coming though) and no password saving.

If support and FW updates for the N9 keep coming for at least 3 years, as they did for my previous (5800) phone, then we can expect some serious improvements (hopefully). About the N900, can't compare with that device since I never owned one. At the time when it came out, I didn't really have the funds but if I read all about what an awesome phone it was and still is, I'm starting to regret never having owned one

There are 2 world clocks in ovi store.

@SamGan

it is a review compared to devices on the market due to the fact of the top dollar price tag. and as it is another nokia open source experiment it had to be compared to the n900. simple really. showing what nokia have learned from the past and current market trends which is apparently nothing.

as for the target n9 audience, i have no idea who this would be other than niche users. playing with it in a shop would show up a lot of issues, including the price tag when you can have an iphone or a samsung galaxy s2 or htc for less. it IS actually widely known that it will be the only meego device so trendy kids will avoid it for android or ios, plus again they are cheaper and have more choice... not with apple though.

as it stands now, compared to other devices on the market, including the n900, the n9 is sub standard. it is most certainly not great. case closed.
if you just look at the n9 as a WIP, it could be great in time.

as for the 2 world clocks in ovi store. i tried the free one and its just that, world clocks. the clock that comes with meego with the alarms tells me the time zone, so it already does world clocks but just doesnt. that is just sloppy. n900 did it all perfectly out of the box over 2 years ago.

My primary use case is wanting to close the current app (to save resources) and start a different app, afaik that's impossible even with SwipeManager. Closing something always drops you to the switcher, whether there are open apps or not.

N9 has it's many flaws as already pointed out in many threads here including this one, but these days there seems to be too much of negativity. N9 _has_ it's good points compared to N900 (or iPhones or Androids).

Speed and smoothness. This feels so much better after N900 system wide general slowness (yes yes, N900 OC'd and all).

Swipe is the most intuitive UI there ever has been for a touchscreen device, even with it's quirks in some specific things. It is so good that I think it will become a standard in a way or another (yes, patents may prevent this but I hope not, and RIM and Apple might have something to say about it too).

Multitasking still rocks. People are too afraid of keeping their stuff running background. I admit that you just have to know the ones that are heavy on battery, and it'd be good to have some kind of "battery friendly" label stamped on programs.

Browser, while lacks settings, works very fast, very smooth and accurate. The forced main column text size is actually pretty good, and I never had it this readable on MicroB (font sizing setting didn't work that well in MicroB, and often not at all and portrait was useless). Opera has it's very bad design decisions too.

You can keep 3g data always on, and it uses much less battery than on N900. (Unless you happen to meet the bug of stuck 3g-connection due bad roaming.)
Constant 3g data is important because N900 was so fricking slow in fetching the IP every time you needed internet fast, and having it always on used up battery fast even when there was zero traffic.

MfE and email client generally. So much smoother and faster. Calendar actually works with Exchange. On N900 something always forced calendar sync off 8 times out of 10, even after I had cleaned up account on N900 and all possible broken items on server side (indeed, even all items).

One hand usability. Now I can text in a crowded bus. It was technically possible with N900, but since the options were cumbersome, didn't support scandic characters or did use up awful load of memory desperately needed by OS elsewhere, I chose not to use virtual keyboard options.

The standby screen clock. This is priceless. Many of us need clock all the day, and the era of big phone screens kicked us in the nuts on this, but at last I can check my clock without pressing any buttons. Handy in the meetings, your very private moment with a big white phone etc.

Size and slimness. Again something you enjoy all the time.

The looks. Just look at it. At last it is on par with Nexus S, SGII and iPhone, beating them all in my opinion.



Too much negativity is bad because everything in today's phone devices can be countered, just depending on ones use case. The looks equals to no bezel and thin, curvy glass, but the side effect is less protected screen. These kind of things is what happens when you put style, touch usability and general durability into the same scale. With regular design the swipe would not work as well, nor the looks of the device would be as good. So durability in form of bezel and out of the harms way flat screen with it is out of the window. Some durability might be gained back with curved glass, as it resists bending inwards in pocket against keys and plain hits, but since they have it so thin in favour of looks, it probably is not enough. Again with plastic and pressure sensitive screen (otherwise my preference because of unmatched precision) getting it curved and thin enough wouldn't work.

How much did you purchase it for actually since you keep saying 'premium price'. It's 64GB, sure it costs more than 16GB S2 or HTC Sensation. It's slightly cheaper than 16GB Iphone 4(not 4S just 4) at where I'm at. FYI, the Msian retail price for 64GB is USD670

It's often compared to Iphone, with Iphone one plus point N9 has is usb mass storage, Iphone is over dependent on Icloud, Itunes, which means high data rates. The glass back cover was another reason I wouldnt get an Iphone, with my 'rough' usage, it'll be broken pretty fast.

It's not aimed at N900 users, it's aimed at mass market users, esp those who have never used Maemo/Meego before. It's my 1st time using Meego(having used Symbian & Android before), no regrets . After looking at what Nokia is offering with WP7 phones, even more glad N9 is released in my country

@eaglehelang
i paid around us$700 for it plus postage from superbuy.my
after currency exchange it was $200 cheaper than buying a 16gb N9 locally. premium.
a samsung galaxy s2 is slightly cheaper than what i paid for my N9

of course S2 is cheaper, its 16gb, n9 is 64gb- you posted you bought the 64gb. S2 is 10% cheaper than 64gb n9, the cost of the 32gb memory card is more than the 10% price difference

that may be so.. but the N9 16gb on sale locally is $300 more than a stock SGS2 sold locally.... hmmmmm