N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Apart from the obvious reason, which is that maemo.org is a forum that frickin rocks. But I am no power-user, and still have a fully-functioning N900, an E7 and a 6131 I use as a door-stop occasionally.

If I were to find an envelope with $700 in the trash, why should I spend it at expansys and buy a 16GB N9?

I trust the people here, which is why I ask so directly. I love a qwerty keyboard, but I'd be willing to "learn" to use a touchscreen one if people could please let me know some (non-fanboy) reasons why the N9 should be bought - while it still can.

Thanks :)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Try it and you will know it. ;)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I could try it, and I'm sure I'd know it, but I'm not sure about their refund policy if it turns out I don't like it.

Why would I "know it"?! :)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Answer is simple - You should not. Really, it's just a waste of money, especially, if You have working N900.

On other situations, I would just recommend to buy N900 for 200$, and save for possible future devices (maybe some really Open one?).

Anyway, even if You're totally N9 biased, You'll probably be able to buy it for less than half price in few months - especially, after Nokia piss of fanboys by some "discounted support" decisions, while focusing on w$nphone. you can expect many fluctuating on ebay etc.

/Estel

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

It's just like falling in love, can't tell story shorter, you must experience it to know it.. :D

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Short answer is its awesome... I struggled with the same question and after watching the engadget and other reviews I sent off $700 to a seller on amazon.com and got my nice shiny new N9 last thursday...

I went from N900 to Android to N9 and the N9 is just frickin awesome, theres nothing like it out there. Perfectly smooth, really nice visuals and effects - swiping works brilliantly, try it with a game or a video playing and its just awesome!

Wish this was Nokia's main platform but we all know how that went...

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Thanks - this is more useful! :) What specific things do you like about it? I know some people might say (not here anyway) why buy an N9 when you could get a Lumia 800? Well I for one know how awesome Maemo is and I'm not bothered about WP right now.

What are the N9's downsides, mainly, how is it to type on without a physical qwerty? Thanks!

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

If only you were to mention your income, mortage, montly savings etc,.. we could put the 700 USD in perspective.

That said, I was expecting the VKB to be the greatest letdown. It isn't half as bad as I expected. Proof is I still can bring up the effort to reply to this post using it.
The screen however is the biggest disappointment to me, coming from the impeccable N900.

I d say check one before you buy. Then buy for other reasons but the screen. :)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Try to me means try on somebody else's device, one of the forum members here perhaps, if you know one.

It is hard since you cant just go to the shop/dealer to test out the display sets.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

It doesnt even come with a memory card slot and for only a 16GB or heck even a 64GB $700 is outragous & only has a 1Ghz cpu so the awnser is NO!!!!!
This is not a buy.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

It is just another Nokia unsupported platform with an extremely good UI.

Looks impressive in hand.

Light weight.

Has navigation.

there have been some complaints about the screens somewhere in TMO so not sure about the build quality.

I was almost going to buy it but then I thought I wont something which is not supported by Nokia and MeeGo project is closed.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

It doesnt even come with punctuations beyond masses of exclamation marks so the answer is NO!!!!!
This is not a reply.


On a more serious note:

You could get your hands on a 64gb device if youre aching for storage space. Personally I use dropbox, picasa, spotify, etc. so I really dont need a TON of space.

Anyways...

Ive gone from N97 to N900 (my GOD that was great...) to N8 (hmz) to SGS2 (YAY!) and now to the N9.

I can, hands on my heart, say the N9 is by far my favourite device.

To start: the N97 was horrible. Enough said.

The N900 was amazing! Albeit... slow on normal functions, no portrait, battery for me at least was meager, and the capacitive screen had its pros and cons.

The N8 was Symbian3 so that was its own hell to deal with, but faster as a phone so I stuck with it for a while.

SGS2 was amazing. Insane screen, fast as all hell, H+ connection, dualcore, customizable UI, the works. Kind of a hassle to work with several apps at once though... The thing I missed most from my N900.


Then the N9.

Screen is about as good as on the SGS2 imo, when Im not sitting half an inch from the display LOOKING for flaws. Its better than SGS2 in direct sunlight, its clear, crisp, and the way the content looks close against the screen looks pretty nice. IMO much preferrable to the N900s screen all in all.

UI is very well done, appswitching is fast and effortless, which brought a sigh of relief to my worried heart after N8 and SGS2.

I still, after all this time with the device, can sit reading my ebooks, halfsliding the screen to check notifications and the time, switching over to Opera Mobile 11.1 by drawing a B on my screen with a twofinger gesture (which I installed through terminal not long ago), checking the forums quickly, before switching to feeds to see if something interesting has popped up on my feeds, and juggling back to my book, all the while having my books TVshow soundtrack playing, and looking down at the nice screen and the great feel of the simplistic design of the device in my hand, I just... kind of smile, and go:

"damn, I love this phone".



TLDR: get one, its nice.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

The biggest down sides for me are:
1) Lack of memory card - 16GB is small but could not think about the amount of money wanted in the US for the 64GB version
2) Limited applications and no access to community repositories similar to the N900, installing applications is easy without the store but the repos made updates easy.

The vkb is pretty decent, the feedback is nice although autocorrect still needs some work.

The screen is beautiful - I have mine at 20% brightness (lowest setting) and its perfectly visible.

The lock screen clock and notifications are pretty awesome - a small thing but something you do not find on many other devices (except symbian). The UI is pretty georgous and snappy, I have encountered a few lags here and there but overall it is very resposive - the few people I have demoed it to here have loved how it looks and how it runs.

From the limited pics I've taken so far the quality of the camera is great although this is to be expected with the zeiss optics. Swiping in the UI is very well done - again try watching a movie or playing a game and swiping away slowly to watch the app slide away while still playing as you slide (very impressive). For a single core processor this thing is great from what I can tell - I had an Xperia X10 temporarily before with Android 2.3.3 on it and that thing routinely ground to a halt with a 1Ghz processor!

Contact integration is as good as the N900, skype quality is crystal clear!

Its light, the screen is great, the device is beautiful and very well made... I am a long time maemo fan (770, n800, n900 and n9) and I struggled with buying this as Nokia have let us down so many times in the past and did again by dropping the N9 in favor of WP7 but I do not regret buying this.

I had considered getting the galaxy nexus and followed the android herd which would have been great from a support and apps standpoint but I like the uniqueness of this device and always loved the maemo.org community support and apps too! Having an open OS on a phone is really nice even though I dont really do anything with it... XDA for android is also great but having to hack roms all the time was getting old!

I've owned mine now for 6 days and I agree with Slai - Damn I love this phone!

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Says you.

...and you immediately mark your opinion out as being not very valuable by saying "only has a 1Ghz cpu".

What does that mean? Without context, nothing. Have you used an N9? To recycle an analogy I have employed elsewhere on these forums, an American muscle car might have a 6 liter engine, but when you try to turn the corner it's crap, and it weighs twice as much as a European sports car with a tiny engine which will thrash the US monster. I'm looking at you, Android and iPhone 4S.

I'm holding an N9 in my hand right now and it is fluid and smooth, even with many concurrently running apps.

As for the no card slot, sure, that's a disappointment... but a deal-breaker? Not even close.

Depends what you want, but if you force me to Yes/No I will say a strong Yes! I bought one and I am thrilled with it.

The N9 is an amazing day-to-day device for, you know, keeping in touch with people, listening to music, taking photos, browsing the web. Dunno about you but I like to do all that stuff every day. The user experience in all of those areas is better than anything I've had before, including the N900... and I'm still on N9 PR1.0

Of course, for server admin tasks or anything which has a hack-y sort of flavour, the N900 is a far superior beast. To recycle and expand upon another one of my analogies used elsewhere on TMO:

• the N900 is a pickup truck: tough, functional, not very pretty, and perhaps not ideal for day-to-day living in the city, but it has a winch, incredible towing power and you can do all kinds of crazy stuff with it
• the N9 is a Maserati Quattroporte S. Not many people have one, but it turns heads and kicks some serious behind. Yes, it's quite expensive and has some quirks, but these minor complaints pale in comparison to what a joy it is to use. It is fast, it looks as good as anything out there, and people will be jealous when you have it on display - and I'm talking real people here, not just geeks

I've been waiting for a long time for the N9 and I'm almost overwhelmed by how good it is. I recommend it.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Geez, I always thought that I could pass on the N9 (being happy with the N900 and all), but after reading the last couple "testimonies" I'm about to pull out the credit card!

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I tried buying one of the B-Stock, last night when I saw the post on Endgadget.

They sent me an email saying that my credit card's address was wrong (some stupid screw up on their part, even though I had just barely fixed it (again!).

So at 11:17am this morning, I got an email from Expansys saying that my card was declined. I called them up, corrected it... then got home just now and saw an email from them saying it was no longer available??!? wtf?

slaapliedje

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I'd buy a N950 without any doubt, but I'm addicted to qwerty I guess. So that makes me undecided :/

I am still expecting some surprise from Nokia, "We decided to sell them !!"

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

if you need to be convinced to buy a N9, then don't!
You can try one in a phone shop for free!

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Many times, I feel it's not worth the effort to flip open the keyboard. The VKB pulls up quickly and it's easy to type, especially after recent updates it seems much more accurate

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I'm in the middle. I'm having great success with the battery life - better than some unfortunate others, and I'm a fan of the UI and the phone portion(s) of the phone is much better than say the N900 - I actually do call people.

The screen is great. The feel and build quality is great. Hell, even the silicone sleeve supplied with the unit is great.

Here's my problem with the phone. It's as small as an iPhone - meaning the 3.9 inch screen is rather small compared to my last few options that were 4.1 inch in the least - that's a quarter of an inch difference basically - I personally cannot go any lower. The vkb, while responsive - best use of haptic so far - I've gotten way too used to Android or WP7 where press and hold for extra punctuation is the norm. I really miss that and yes folks... I know that the vkb is incredibly flexible, but so far, I've yet to see those changes on the vkb.

I'm having a problem with Drive. It will not work for me at all. I'm perhaps the only one, but there are other apps that will not work out of the box for some folks. My updates on Twitter are seamless... e-mails though? Not so much. The fact that Android and WP7 both can pull my contacts on just one account yet I had to set up my Gmail account and a Mail for Exchange (MfE) for the very same Gmail account that housed all of my contacts... which I had to gleam from an YouTube account and not from any other official documentation.

It's a phone for tweakers, hackers and people that like to play. But it's not a "hacker phone" like the N900. I don't have Git, Capistrano, or a lot of other stuff. Heck, I don't even have reboot from command line like I did on the N810.

And to be honest, that does bother me. It would bother me if I had paid $700 for a phone that doesn't have an expandable memory, nor a way to shift pictures from camera to Twitter (it doesn't exist) or to push directly to some Drobox, Box.net, Amazon S3, or something another to just get it off of my phone and into the cloud saving me paranoia about space since I have a 16gb - Dropian might just change all of that though. I don't have Flash, nor do I have the trend graph - not the pie chart - on Google Analytics. I have to hard edit the location(s) I've used the AccuWeather app in the conf file. And I'm missing some other things - namely video Skype and an iffy issue with Google Talk... and there's no MSN, AIM, Yahoo either.

The arrows for going back sometimes are up top (browser), sometimes way at the bottom (most other apps) and sometimes I have to tap into the application just to get access to the back button. Swiping exits the app, but that's fine. It's another swipe to go back.

Multi-tasking... N9 has it. Period.

But it's a good phone. Excellent device. Has some rough edges. Will probably never get some killer 3rd party support, it works great, has a few quirks that bother the ever-loving crap out of me, but has a workflow that so far has been way more positive than negative for me. And that's after going from iPhones to Android to N900 (back) to Android to WP7. iOS is out as an option forever for me and I'm a Mac user.

I'm honestly liking my N9. Didn't even expect to - thought I'd be able to come onto these boards, trash this, gain some extra hate points and walk out with both middle fingers extended.

Nope. I'm here, I'm still learning, trying to help like 23+ more people to get a N9 so they can experience what I like and dislike about this phone.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Youve got DropN9 and pictures-to-twitter came with PR 1.1. Right?

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Yet to get the update on my phone. I do have DropN9 though, but as it stands, if I take a picture right now, if I share - the options are Flickr, MMS (Multimedia Message), Mail, Bluetooth and NFC. No Twitter, nor is uploading to Twitter an option.

It's a blaring oversight that I hope was fixed.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

If people can read it and understand it then who cares about all that stuff, Besides a hateful little spelling nazi.

With all the USB problems about the N900 im shocked they left out the micro USB slot & micro sd slot- its as tho Nokia is saying you can trust us and we sure cant. (Unless your Slai a Nokia paid employee)

And not everyone uses Cloud storage, like me for example i use other peoples interwebs & sometimes its slow & not only that what if im camping in a place without interwebs so yeah space is a necessary otherwise why go for any memory in the phone.

i had that kinda money right now i would not hesitate to get a Samsung Galaxy S 2 smartphone with 64GB Micro Sdxc card which has been comfirmed to work with it., but of course i'll keep my N900 too.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

"shallimus = Says you.
...and you immediately mark your opinion out as being not very
valuable by saying "only has a 1Ghz cpu"
.
For $700 bucks it better have a dual core 1.2Ghz cpu at the minimum and for that price i wouldnt get it if it had less than 32GB internal memory also.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

That was a great response, but then again, you're Gerbick ;)

I think your points are helpful, I'm not expecting the 'perfect storm' although for $700+ maybe one should. I dunno. I'm really torn. I know my Christmas bonus would just cover it (just) but right now I'm nervous about the vkb thing. I've tried 'em all (except the N9!) iPhone, WP7 and and Fandroids, and I just don't like them. I prefer my N900 and E7's feel. Just do. But I also reckon that the N9 beauty will disappear soon and needs to be snapped up while it can. It's Maemo for crying out loud, and it looks amazing on YouTube vids. Silky smooth and delicious and not WP or Android or iOS or Symbian. It looks like a superb sexy update to Maemo5 but with some familiarity to Maemo5 too, which ticks some boxes for me.

It's a toughy, that's for sure. More YouTube vid watching is in order I think...

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Huh... you're quite right. What happened to init 6? :(

...which was handy sometimes on the N900

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

So, this guy seems to give an honest account in his N9 review, but it sounds fairly negative all the same. What do the real N9 users think of his negative comments (esp. the stuttery UI):

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/8/25...okia-n9-review

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Seems like a decent article allbe it from an apple fanboy...

1) The battery, this is a hard comparison - what sync schedule did he have running on the N9, was it always connected to 3G/Wifi while he was away... Apple is no different here, usual battery life of a smartphone is 1 day, not shocked that his N9 was dead and his apple still had battery (how much calling did he do other than his one time admitted starbucks wifi event)

2) Stuttering, for the most part no. I have noticed some slow downs from time to time but so far nothing major, almost all interaction with the phone has been smooth - and I still do not have the 1.1 update. I think I accidentally clicked the wrong thing once not the claimed 50% of the time...

3) Battery - the battery is great, I went over 26 hours one day on a full charge with surfing, email, texting, some calls, bluetooth and music all going for an hour or two... It may not be apple with its mythical battery life that he described but it sure is good! My phone gets charged once a day and it lasts throughout the day till the next no problem - thats with email sync and around 1-2 hours of surfing and facebook each day plus any calls and texting I do while at work...

4) His iphone headphone jacks? I think the problem there is not nokia but apple having non-standard headphone jacks... (starting to see a theme in his article, he does'nt like apple or anything)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

To be honest, what You experience Andy, seems to me like (new gadget fever). Of course I may be wrong.

If You like feel of Your N900, I think there is really much more creative way of spending 700$. Heck, for this amount of money, You can (almost) order top high-end sample (lying, that you're interested in large quantities later) of upcoming device with open drivers (from asian factories), and start porting Maemo to it ;)

One (amongst many others) problem of N9, is that it's trying to be more apple than iPod itself. It's just not the device for same king of people, that enjoy hack-ability of N900 - IMO. Aegis (may be not a problem due to workaround kernel, but, it's still unsure, if using that will void guaranty for Your 700$ device - at least, when You're going to flash custom kernel, big letter on n900 warn You about "voiding warranty pernamently"), build-in battery (you need to disassemble whole device, to get into it), no SD card slot, no HDMI output (yea, i know N900 doesn't have it either, but it wasn't released on 2011 and don't cost 700 bucks...) etc...

It's quite funny, how people spent 700$ just to feel "torn". I think there are many situations in life, when You can get dilemmas for free ;)

/Estel

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

The sad thing is that if you bought it in the US then you effectively have no warranty (at least from nokia) as it was not meant to be sold in your geographical location - my n9 has warranty information for austraila and new zealand which is useless to me in the states...

Major bit of buyer beware, I purchased a square trade 2 year warranty for $100 on top of it which should help protect the device...

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Well, it's looking more and more likely that I'll have to fly home to England for Christmas, and that's where my $700 is going, straight into Virgin Atlantic's pockets. Maybe it's for the best, as someone said earlier, in a few months or so, I could pick one up for a lot less than than once "New Gadget Fever" has subsided. I just really want the last true Maemo device after having enjoyed my N900 so much! And I am just a basic user who downloaded from the repos but that's as far as I went - not a power hacker of any kind.

I also love the idea of being in the States with something hardly anyone else will have, even when they release the Lumia 800 here, this still will be different (with a better OS and UI!)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Even if you don't like it you can sell it on ebay and get almost all your money back if you take good care of it. Or just view it as renting and sell it in a year if something else comes along you want to try. But, this is of course assuming you can realistically afford the $689. Personally I don't have many more hobbies than mobile phones and I use it heavily every day so it is worth it for me.
My personal thoughts on N9 (coming from N82>E71>N900>iPhone3G>Nexus One>N8>N9)
Although it still needs some minor fixes it is an excellent phone with one of the best feel and build of any phone on the market except maybe E71.
The UI will ruin you for life and you will become unable to use phones without swipe interface and you will wonder how you lived without it for so long.
Camera is as good as most other current offerings except the N8 but the Maps needs updated to be just as good as the S^3 is right now. The rest of my needs are well met and N9 will likely get even better as the community works on more apps to add functionality.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Apologies for dredging up an old thread, but I'm still playing with the idea of buying an N9. Thing is, I've been scouring over TMO and some other MeeGo websites, and I'm a little concerned about a few things, which perhaps some bright spark here could clarify:
Being in the USA, is it true that any N9 bought over the web (at NewEgg for example) will originally be from one of the official release countries (such as Germany or Australia) and if this is the case, can any updates such as PR 1.1 or later 1.2 be updated OTA while in the States, or will I have to workaround to get the update?

Also, I've read that some basic functionality - such as calling, email with MfE, and contacts - is spotty, and in some cases plain old broken. Is this a case-by-case thing, or are there 'well-known' big problems across the OS in general?

On the plus (and confusing) side I've also read absolutely loads of positive things which is helping to push me in the right direction, but I'm scared of splashing out that amount of $ to be stuck with a phone that has big problems and very little/no Nokia/retailer support if things go wrong as I'm in a non-official N9 country, the US.

Thanks! :)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I was going through the same thing you are. I researched forever looking at all the good and bad. I was worried that if I spent this much ($654 from newegg w/extra 1 yr service net warranty) that if it breaks or something better from Nokia comes out I would be screwed. However, I found that buying from Newegg turned out to be easy and quick. They have the US charger in the box. They offer 30day replacement and the extra warranty is helpful because it also covers accidents including water spills, drops etc. Unfortunately, the terms of service net warranty state that if you do make a claim they have options to fulfill the claim: repair, replace, refund for current market value, or to buy out the remainder of your warranty which sucks. On a brighter note, if you're a homeowner and have homeowner's insurance with mostly anyone except for statefarm, you can ask for a personal articles policy to cover a cell phone which the most cost $35 a year. I would have went this route but I have statefarm and they don't cover cell phones. If you do get a personal articles policy, depending on insurance you have they may not require a big deductible and will send you a check in the mail for a new device!
Oh and I got the cyan N9 from newegg and it had the pr1.1 update. It's really an amazing device even though there's not as many apps as other OSes, there are still many good apps that are useful and easy to find rather than just going through over 500,000 where a lot of it is just junk. Hopefully Alien Dalvik comes out, or developers start utilizing Html5 for apps.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I have an N9- BLACK 16 GB for sale, Im going back to the N900 because I need a keyboard. Ill give you a little discount lmk Thanks ! And I am in US as well,

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

For anything over $100, the N9 is a joke. For $700 you'd be sorely regretting it, even if you told yourself you weren't. MeeGo is NOT Maemo and the N9 is NOT an upgraded N900 - more like a downgraded N8. If you've made extensive use of your N900, the N9 just won't cut it. And if your N900 still works, what ungodly reason could you have to replace it? My advice is to forget about Nokia altogether, keep your CSSU'd and kernel-power'd N900 indefinitely, and keep an eye on what Intel comes up with in the tablet area in the coming years.

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

Love to know the condition and what you're asking for it. I'm in NYC. I've seen the N9 in action at Jacks Place on 51st St. Loved it. But $799 just ain't in my budget!! :)

Re: N9 going for $700 in USA. Why should I buy one?
 

I just received mine from Negrielectronics, it was made in China. I got the PR 1.1 update OTA about an hour or two after turning it on. I think the basic functionality problems is a case by case issue, as i have not had any problems yet***Knock on wood***. Negri's price was $534.50 USD after coupon. Negri is also a licensed repair shop & told me if there were a warranty issue, i would send it to their repair shop in Las Vegas, NV. By the way, i'm loving this phone !!