Nokia Announces First MeeGo-based Phone: N9

MeeGo’s future has never been too certain, and it was made even more uncertain earlier this month after a notable spat within Nokia involving MeeGo supporter Richard Green occurred earlier this month. At that time, it became questionable as to whether or not Nokia was even planning to fulfill its original goal to see a product hit the market, but with the N9, MeeGo has its first smartphone.

The N9 features a 3.9″ AMOLED screen with a 854×480 resolution, and has few physical buttons, making it solely a touch-based offering. It comes equipped with 1GB of RAM and either 16GB or 64GB of built-in flash. Powering the beast is Texas Instrument’s single-core OMAP3630, running at 1GHz. While not exactly a brand-new SoC, nor a multi-core one, it should prove sufficient enough given the highly-tuned OS.

Wireless capabilities include a quad-band GSM, penta-band WCDMA, Bluetooth 2.1, NFC and also GPS. Interestingly, in lieu of dual cameras, Nokia has put an 8MP offering on the back, utilizing auto-focusing rather than extended depth-of-focus to take a clear picture, and so that you aren’t fiddling around with the touch-screen in the heat of the moment, the camera has its own dedicated button.

The N9 is in all regards light, at 135g, and manageable in size, at 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6-12.1mm. For going the entire weekend without a single charge, its battery can handle 50 hours of music, 7 – 11 hours of GSM talk and for those looking to keep a charger nearby, 4.5 hours of video. Oh, and depending on your mood on the day of purchase, there are three colors to choose from; blue, pink and black.

Of course, the most interesting thing about the N9 is MeeGo, the result of a joint venture between Intel and Nokia, first forged last spring. With WebOS 3.0 right around the corner, and Android heating up the charts, not to mention Apple’s iOS continuing to dominate, MeeGo is going to have a tough battle on its hands. At least we’re going to see an actual product, though. I was beginning to think it was going to take forever.