They can extend the capacitive area beyond the area for the display. It would be a nice alternative.

People where already telling technobuffalo ~2 months ago that the phone they where leaking was not N9, but E7 or N8-01(they had absolutely no idea of Nokia's lineup... or Symbian if that matters ).

Eldar Murtazin confirmed that the N9 pictured seen last page(and below) is indeed the MeeGo phone. Lets also remember that Nokia execs have said that all N series phones after N8 will be MeeGo phones and the leaked phone shows N9 branding(that's quite rare as these leaks usually just carry proto labeling like C00 or Nx).
I'm 90% sure that the phone pictured below will be the Nokia's MeeGo-Harmattan phone announced this year(hopefully released too).


Anyways it's not a first time Nokia got same design language in it's high end phones and wont be the last.

Here's Engadgets post when this phone was leaked.

At least the new design language (anodized aluminium) is better than the N81 glossy plasticky era.

Some more from Eldar

http://mynokiablog.com/2010/10/04/el...ect-i-like-it/