Before you buy: Top 8 Most Comprehensive reviews of Nokia N9

It's been over a year since Nokia N9 was released in September 2011. I've personally owned the phone for just about 11 months and must admit I'm still far from finding myself another phone. There have been ups and downs, but Nokia N9 just seems to do the job. I do not want to sound like a Nokia geek, but N9 has a number of advantages that make it a perfect phone.

Nokia N9 after a year of use

On the plus side:
- Sturdy and solid design, which stands the test of time with its superior quality polycarbonate body. The lack of body paint makes it impossible to wear and tear the corners or scratch the phone.
- MeeGo is by far one of the simplest, most intuitive and least complicated smartphone systems out there.
- Fast and sleek user interface, based on Swipe gestures for switching between and closing apps.
- Superb multitasking - the phone is capable of handling several to dozens of simultaneously running apps without a significant decrease in performance.
- Powerful 8MB autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss optics.
- Supports many popular video codecs out of the box, including XVID, DIVX, H.264, H.263, MP4, WMV, MKV Matroska. Read more.
- Supports MP3, WMA and lossless audio formats like FLAC and OGG out of the box (which is really rare for a smartphone)
- Supports Dolby Digital Plus for music and videos.
- Over a year after it's premiere back in 2011, comes cheap and will set you back much compared to other popular smartphones.
- Seamless SNS integration with one pane for instant messaging, RSS, SMS, Facebook, Twitter etc.
- Supports Flash (in Mozilla browser)

On the negative side:
- Scarcity of applications, (but hey, what you really need is there).
- MeeGo system will no longer be supported by Nokia, so don't expect any more official updates.
- Lack of SD memory slot - you're limited to either 16 or 64GB version
- The phone's system won't let you use 100% of the memory - it just about 9GB abailable for the user in 16GB version, and about 57GB available for your stuff in 64GB version. This was a huge setback for me.
- N9's Pen-tile display is not on par with modern smartphones' displays (e.g. iPhone, and flagship HTC and Samsung Android phones). The screen's pen-tile pattern makes itself visible on closer look. The checkboard pattern and letter fringing is quite visible, see photos.
- The gorilla glass display easily resists scratches, but not oily smudges and fingerprints. You just have to wipe the screen every now and then to keep it pristine.
- Lack of proper android-like homescreen and widgets, there just the home menu, i.e. the phone offers little space for customization (i.e. no wallpapers, widgets, icons) and is blatantly boring and simple.
- Although the phone supports Flash, the rich animation websites really stammer.
- Useless front-facing camera (except for Google talk).
- Very limited set of useful applications: there is no stop watch, no voice recorder, no document editor, no file browser. There is, however, possibility to install them from the store.
- No voice commands, no voice dialling. It's a pity since the predecessors in N-series had them out of the box. This is probably one of the features I miss most.

Here's a list of the most comprehensive reviews of Nokia N9 (order accidental):

1. TheMobileFanatics - Nokia N9 Review by Alvin Wong

2. Zvjer Blog - Nokia N9 takes over my soul and my heart

3. GsmArena.com - Nokia N9 review: Once in a lifetime

4. TheVerge.com - Nokia N9 review

5. Engadget.com - Nokia N9 review

6. PhoneArena.com - Nokia N9 review

7. SlashGear.com - Nokia N9 review

8. PocketNow.com - Nokia N9 review