Hands on: Nokia N9, a pleasant surprise to bring the mojo back

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s presentation at this year’s CommunicAsia show was expected to be the event’s highlight, and he didn’t disappoint this morning by showing off a new smartphone that finally put a bit of the mojo back into the embattled phone maker.

No, he didn’t announce a new Windows Phone device, but instead the Meego-based N9 stole the show today in Singapore with a luscious screen and a quick, sleek touch interface that surprised many. It’s the device Nokia should have come up with a year, maybe two years, ago.

The first thing that catches the eye is how simple the N9’s construction is. The phone is made out of a single block of plastic (more precisely, a hardy polycarbonate), which holds a shiny 3.9-inch screen snugly in its grasp. This way, the Gorilla glass seems to pop out at you with its bright and sharp AMOLED display. If Nokia was looking for simplicity in design, the N9 aces that, hands down.

The 854 x 480 screen is one of the best in the market, with such deep blacks that make images appear with excellent contrast and more stunning vibrance. That’s nothing new, if you have seen the N8, for example. But in terms of a new design – Apple and the others have all gone metallic – the N9 is really something refreshingly different.

What’s also interesting is the Meego 1.2 Harmattan operating system, which finally looks like the software that Nokia has been looking for to replace the ageing Symbian OS and compete toe-to-toe with Google Android and Apple iOS devices.

And it is easy to use. With no buttons on the N9 besides the volume and power buttons on the side, the “all screen” device requires you to swipe between three main screens – Applications, Open Applications and Events. Deep inside other programs or menus, there’s usually an on-screen back button, so you don’t have to worry about being lost deep in navigation.

It takes a bit of getting used to, especially when you are coming from Android or Windows Phone, where you expect an always-there Home or Back button to do a lot of the work, or with the iPhone, where you at least have a Home button, of sorts. But even without a physical button, the Meego UI appears well thought out.

And unlike the Symbian OS which has really been around Nokia for way too long, swiping between screens is very easy and the experience really as smooth as any of the other touch-based OSes out now.

Meego also seems to have a multi-tasking ability on par or even beyond that of many of the major phone OSes now. During a hands-on session today, Nokia demonstrated how a video would continue playing even when you are sliding the screen on halfway with another program.

The folks at the Nokia booth explained that some programs in the background will stop using processing power and battery when they have been “in limbo” for a while, while others will keep working. For example, videos will go on pause though Facebook and Twitter, for obvious reasons, will stay active in the background.

The hardware driving all this is an Arm Cortex A8 1GHz CPU, paired with a PowerVR GX530 graphics chip, which seemed to do the job pretty well here today at demos.

To be honest, after seeing an endless line of Symbian devices from Nokia, while the rest of the world rocked on with mostly Android and iOS in the past two years, it’s been sad going to Nokia events to see the folks put on a brave face amid the decline and uncertainty.

The N9, available only “later this year” according to Elop, will put some much-needed momentum back into the company. It will convince users and investors that the Finnish giant still has what it takes to make a great device that is on par with and perhaps even better than the best out there.

The question is what role this Meego device will play when Nokia releases its A-team of Windows Phone devices come year end. Elop would only say today that some of the elements of the N9 will find their way to the upcoming Microsoft-based devices.

The interest that the N9 has generated will now raise the expectations even higher for these Windows Phone gizmos that are planned to keep hold of the company’s fast diminishing share of the market, when they ship by year end.

Interestingly, one comment I hear from both telco executives and journalists today is that the N9 has come a year too late. If Nokia had this Meego device a year ago, it might not have lost that much share that fast and might not even have considered Windows Phone a necessity.