Wow! You should really check this! It seems that "santaclaus" is finally coming: wirelessgoodness.com/2011/05/11/nokias-n9-meego-smartphone-hits-the-fcc/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

EDIT: Added smileys:

Looks like ill be sticking with my N900 for awhile, then.

I think the N9 looks ugly.

You know what ? I might just buy this. Even as a dead-end end-of-line product, the geek in me *wants*.

It's going to be a tough call for me for sure. I was intending on getting a WP7 Nokia, use the N900 with my work SIM and divert calls to the WP7, so that i have all the benefits of the N900 and a primary phone on top. This confuses the issue no end... i don't really want another unsupported OS but i do want it too. Have to see how good it is hardware wise and what Nokia have to say about supporting it and what people think of it.

ETA: looks like Elop was full of crap when he said MeeGo wasn't far enough along - odds are this will be out before WP7 devices. I know it's not actual MeeGo, but damn, it is a high end OS that presumably can be upgraded to full MeeGo when the time is right

Have Nokia serously just dusted off a 12 month old device as there first meego phone, which looks just like the E7 anyway? Lets hope the hardware insdie has been updated or otherwise sellig the rumoured 92K units maybe difficult for Nokia.

I expect the design will be awesome - Nokia have always been good there. Why MIcrosoft would let Nokia carry on producing and supporting a non-Microsoft operating system I have no idea.
I can only assume there is a legal reason for producing a MeeGo phone, maybe something between Nokia and Intel. But Nokia have dumped everything else (even QT (to a company noone has ever heard of) and Nokia Maps (to replace Bing maps in Windows mobile) ) like a hot potato.

Don't forget, MeeGo is not solely a Nokia venture. We could still have access to updates etc from Intel for example.

Looks like an all metal case to me. Keypad looks a little out of the norm too with the Ctrl key where it is.

Hope they do it in black. Might consider it then.

It looks a lot like the E7 hardware to me: http://www.nokia.co.uk/search?wsid=1...0&GO.x=0&qt=e7
which is perfectly fine.

Don't forget that this is not MeeGo. It's Harmattan, which is Maemo with the MeeGo APIs. However they will be porting the MeeGo DE to the device, which could be used as a very good basis for a community supported platform (especially if the MeeGo project has rights to rebuild/redistribute any non-open bits.)

But any buy would happen ONLY if the above were true AND it significantly exceeded the N900's capabilities.

Yes i've wondered about that, so it could be interesting to see how this unfolds. Maybe hear next week?
But as this isn't a true MeeGo phone but is Harmattan, maybe it won't receive the updates. Have to see. If it can do what the N900 can do but with updated hardware and can receive MeeGo updates from Intel, i will want it.