Nokia promised us a MeeGo handset, then the rumors were it had been cancelled, then out of the blue the N9 comes crashing out with a sweet bang!
But Nokia have been reluctant to mention Meego, perhaps they are scared to upset the partnership between themselves and Microsoft. Either way Meego is here and not just in the form on the N9. The N950 is essentially the phone from the N9 rumours – it has the slide out QWERTY keyboard that the N9 was rumoured to have, it has the solid aluminum body similar to that of the N8 and that the N9 was rumoured to have.
However, some of the features have been slimmed down; there’s no AMOLED screen, instead what we have is a 4-inch TFT screen, the camera is not Carl Zeiss branded but gives a very similar quality, the front facing camera is the same but located in a different position, there is no NFC support and the compass is slightly less accurate, plus we have a slightly less powerful battery (1320mAh vs. 1450mAh).
The main problem is that the N950 is a developer phone and the software it has is an unfinished and slightly buggy version of MeeGo. Additionally, it won’t get any over the air software updates. Only developers will be able to buy the N950, it won’t be on sale commercially and as yet we don’t know the pricing for developers.
With MeeGo being such a durable platform, a developer will be sure to port the N9 software to the N950.
I for one hope that that the N9 and MeeGo take off and enjoy great success. Do you like the look of Nokia’s N950 and hope they’ll make it into a commercially available handset? Share your thoughts with us via our Twitter page!