Nokia is currently holding their annual Nokia World event in London right now, and while the important announcements were seen yesterday, things like 4 feature phones and 2 smartphones, both the first Nokias to run Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, today the Finnish handset maker has surprised us by talking about the N9. Currently the N9 comes in black, blue, and pink, but later this year there will be a new choice: white. It may seem insignificant, especially since Nokia isn’t launching the N9 in very many countries, but Frank Zillikens, who heads up the product marketing for Nokia N9, says: “The manufacturing process for beautiful white products is quite complex and we wanted to make sure we deliver the best possible quality for our consumers.” How did they do it for the N9? They made it glossy. The folks at Engadget have some hands on photos, one of which is at the top of this article. It’s damn slick.
As for current Nokia N9 owners, you’ll be pleased to know that by the end of this year you’re going to get a software update. Nokia says: “The update includes usability improvements, like music controls keys from the lock screen or closing apps by swiping them down by default and NFC tag reading is also added.” And that’s it. We would like to have seen a detailed changelog, but meh, chances are we will once the update actually starts being pushed out.
Those of you who skipped the N9 because it’s not going to be supported by a vast number of developers, are you going to pick up the Lumia 800 instead? It’s practically the exact same device, expect for the smaller screen, and it runs Windows Phone. Even though Nokia has said that they’ll really show what their agreement with Microsoft is capable of delivering with Windows Phone Apollo, the Lumia 800 isn’t really that bad of a start!