Engadget praises Nokia N9: It’s fantastic, like nothing comes close to it.

This is really surprising, for me at least, seeing Engadget praising Nokia N9 in a way that I just couldn’t believe that. But it’s true. Vlad Savov from Engadget has just surprised us. Myriam (the senior mobile editor at Engadget) had an interview with Vlad and Brad. Following is the talk between Myriam and Vlad, it was really interesting listening to them in a fun way. A compilation of the interview has been quoted below.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Well the same post has been re-posted by Jay at MNB. Thanks to him for compiling the podcast and writing it down.

Following is the talk went on the podcast between Myriam and Vlad

  • Vlad – N9 – how surprising, it is Nokia’s MeeGo phone. It was supposed to be the big one, and it turned out to be the big one. Often the end result is not as good as the promise.
  • Myriam – we agree – it’s mind blogglingly deliciously awesome.
  • Vlad – Good things are numerous – physical design is excellent, but superior to N8 (already a very well designed phone).
  • Myriam – I don’t think you’re doing it justice there Vlad. This is the MOTHER of all phones. This is the design of the gods. This is IT, like NOTHING comes close to this. This blows everybody’s minds out of the universe. NOW that is an intro for the N9.
  • Vlad – Polycarbonate – plastic – but still feels a cut above those plastic phones.
  • Vlad – There’s pink for girls, blue for boys and a black  for classy people. The black one blows the other two out of the water. It is so slick and sophisticated, it is just so beautiful. Like honestly if you put a Vertu branding on it, I would be like, ‘finally, Vertu has a phone worthy of those 10,000USD price tags’.  It is fantastic, the black one.
  • Vlad – Thinking about this now, Nokia should totally do this. Don’t call it N9, call it Vertu MeeGo phone s Vertu owners don’t expect an ecosystem, just a kickass,  sophisticated, stylish phone and this is exactly whta the N9 is. It’s extremely beautiful to look at and shockingly because Nokia hasn’t done this in years, once you turn it on, it’s STILL beautiful to look at, it’s still awesome, you still want to touch it and use it.
  • Vlad -The way Nokia’s put it together, it’s interface – and this is specific to Nokia – this isn’t the MeeGo interface, this is Nokia’s  Harmattan UI on top of MeeGo. It’s fantastic and the responsiveness is fantastic and it’s just a pleasure to use. I really want to go back to Nokia’s offices and pick up a couple of these phones so I can play with them, and it’s so rare.
  • Myriam: Vlad is Jaded guys, if he’s excited about stuff, this has got to be good.
  • Vlad -General point – Nokia has really nailed it in terms of hardware and software.
  • Vlad – Admittedly only used it for an hour so haven’t teted how good the browser is, how good the email client is which are fundamental to smartphone users.  There are still unanswered questions. But what we saw in terms of interface, organizing user smartphone in physical design was top notch
  • Vlad – I need to say this – the AMOLED screen on this phone is just GORGEOUS. Gorilla glass screen and it’s curved, it melts of meets the physical bits is beautiful, if feels fantastic when you’re holding it and touching it and the itnerface plays right into that because it’s all black and you have the menus – the animation of the menus make them look like they’re popping out at you.
  • Myriam – so what you’re saying is that looking at this phone’s screen is like looking into the eyes of God?
  • Vlad – Yes, pretty much.
  • Myriam – yes that’s what I thought.
  • Vlad – I think that’s understating it a little bit but I’ll go with that.
  • Myriam – I am very excited about this, you have to understand, I’ve been a really long time Nokia fangirl,  and frankly, you know I’ve been clinging onto this fangirl thing for a long time but really pissed at the same time at the stupid things Nokia’s doing, WP stuff has given me hope but I’ve always known that Maemo/MeeGo/Harmattan all that stuff, has shown a lot of promise.
  • Myriam – Seeing finally reach a stage where it’s compelling as a user experience has really got me excited on top of that really lovely hardware.
  • [I skipped a bit]
  • Vlad – N9 could be one of the top choices for smartphones if it does everything else as well as it seems to do it. Like I say, it takes time. We haven’t reviewed it but it seems to promise to do things brilliantly, like the basic fundamental things. If it does those well, we could probably get over the fact that it might not have the added value applications. That could be overlooked.
  • Myriam – ultimately there are only a particular things I do with my phone. if they’re done really well – so far everything we’ve seen has been done very well

Frankly, it was really surprising listening to Engadget guys praising about a Nokia device. Vlad, however, mentioned that he didn’t reviewed the Nokia N9 in detail yet but he liked the design, the hardware and most of it the user interface (Nokia really has introduced a unique swipe user interface). But he wanted curiously to visit a Nokia Office and grab the Nokia N9 to check each and everything within the device. That much he said, he liked the phone and it has the potential to attract a user to do all the things with it. He mentioned that it seems that N9 could even do everything what is expected from it comparatively.

Whatever Engadget is up to with this story of likeness with N9 and relating another fact of leaking Nokia “Sea Ray” (the first Nokia Windows Phone) right after the day N9 was announced. There are different speculations about the situation.

My personal view on the fact that Engadget started liking a Nokia device is only a spot to inform that they are not biased to other brands. And on the same time they as well refused to accept the Nokia’s strategy of abandoning MeeGo even after such a huge success of pre-release Nokia MeeGo smartphone, the N9. They called it a hit.

Any how, the coming days will tell what actually the MeeGo future is. For now the N9 is really an innovation by Nokia. I hope best for it.

 

[via MyNokiaBlog, Engadget]