Installing non-store apps
Like I said, even if there are less apps in Nokia Store, you can always install Apps from outside sources like my-meego.com and n9fanclub.com, but installation is a little different here being a Linux based OS. You will get .deb files and sometimes even supporting files, which wont be installable by just double clicking over them. So, what’s the way?
First you need to enable Developer mode that might ask you to install some tools. Once done, you will find a terminal application there in Application view. Open it and type the following to gain root privileges first
devel-su
It will ask you for password where you have type the password as “rootme” without quotes. After the password, now you are ready to install the apps that you copied into your mass memory. But first you need to come back to Mass Memory folder that would be “/home.user/MyDocs” and then install the .deb package by the following command
dpkg –I name_of_package.deb name_of_supporting_package.deb
Once done successfully, you will find the app installed and shown in your Application view.
Syncing and Backing up Nokia N9
With Nokia N900, its been an issue to sync with PC and if I remember right then it was only PC suit that was supporting Nokia N900 at that was Nokia Ovi Suit support was in works. Also the Mac users were denied any kind of access via PC.
With Nokia N9, Nokia thought to overcome those issues by introducing Nokia Link, a new application for Windows 7, Mac Snow Leopard, or Mac Lion computer that will allow you to sync Photos, Music or Videos. Via Nokia Link, you can even link your Nokia N9 to the media libraries on your computer. Nokia Link can use the media libraries of Windows Media Player or iTunes, to name just a couple of examples.
But there is a work around as well (thanks to MNB for posting) via which you can use even our beloved Nokia Suit for syncing content between any Windows PC and Nokia N9. For connecting your Nokia N9 to PC via Ovi Suit, you need to follow the following steps:
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Uninstall any version of Nokia\Ovi Suit, if installed.
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Google for Ovi Suit 3.0.0.290 and download it (one of the link is this).
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Disconnect all network connections and install this version of Ovi Suit.
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Once install then keep the network (internet) disconnected and sync Nokia N9 once.
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Once done, then you can go online and update your Ovi Suit to latest version (Nokia Suit).
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You will see that Nokia N9 still syncing with the latest version.
Obviously, its a work around and wont work for many of the things like Maps download etc, but still it works for contacts sync, media sync etc.
While your contacts etc will already be backed up with the online services, you can take an in-device backup as well via Sync and Backup menu as shown above. Works as manually created restore points for your phone.
Geeky side of Nokia N9, non-conventional ways to access the device
Being a Linux and open device, you can connect to the device via Wifi/USB and may use non-conventional methods like putty/WinSCP etc to access it from outside. For the same, you would be required to use SDK connect mode. Its quite cool for geeks who like to fiddle with the device and find it awkward to rely on touch keyboard only. Moreover, a connect via Putty or WinSCP allows you to transfer data in or out just like some other PC sitting in your house.
Though there is some catch. I couldn’t test it so can’t confirm if the root ID is restricted now after PR1.1, moreover, USB mode can be used only if Nokia Network Bridge in installed in your PC. Unfortunately, Network Bridge seems not available as a separate installation and included in Qt SDK only.
Some issues with Nokia N9
I thought to add this section as well due to some of the incidence that happened with me. Kind of a few bugs still around in Nokia N9.
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Image sorting while upload: I already mentioned this in above sections that somehow the method to call for Gallery from any app sorts the images by name in place of Date and Time itself. Its kind of similar issue as on Android as well, but ruins the complete cause of click and share. Issue becomes more worse due to kind of slower Gallery thumbnails generation in case of thousands of pictures inside.
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Account Authentication Broken: I am not sure what caused this, but this been quite an irritating behavior on my Nokia N9 that it was asking me to provide the passwords of all the accounts configured, whenever I was doing a restart or Nokia N9 went down due to discharged battery. Think of the frustration, when I was needed to type passwords of my three Gmail accounts, one office account, one Skype account, one Nokia account, one twitter account and one Facebook account. This started only after PR1.1 update.
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Soft reset bricking the device: This happened in the last moments of Nokia N9 with me. I thought to clear the content on the device before sending the review unit back and used the in-device menu to clear the content. It took a few mins and then device was bricked with one strange circular arrow sign shown on device. So, it would be a thing to be beware if you have a Nokia N9 with you.
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Wifi Hotspot doesn’t honor Android devices just like Joiku on Symbian: Till when it was about Symbian, it could have understood that there are some limitations about it, but when there is a new operating system
Nokia N9: Some final thoughts
So, this was all the info I could have collected about Nokia N9 for giving you a feel of what I experienced with it in a short span of time and all I can say, I never had my hands on such a beautiful device. Nokia N9 is definitely something like hotness personified. Its one of those gadgets who leave you with a lust to get it again.. no matter how many other gadgets you might own, no matter how much you didn’t liked the features or weaknesses of the same… you want to have it again and again. Everyone knows that there are less apps, but Nokia N9 is one of those devices, which feels like complete even out of the box and slips into your life so naturally that after it everything looks incomplete,
I know how it feels like when I swipe down Twitter for Android on my Galaxy S to close it or swipe it left to move on other apps. I know that I should not do it, but it happens… How can some device come and change your life long habits in a matter of few days? It happens when that device follows the nature itself. That’s what Nokia N9 is… just natural, just simple.
I wrote in the first section that I started reviewing Nokia N9, keeping in the mind that I am coming from Nokia N900, Nokia N9 and Samsung Galaxy S and was looking to weigh it from those perspectives, but somehow Nokia Blurs everything out there and makes it own place. There were a lot of compromises on Nokia N900 and that handset always felt like something new tried by Nokia, but Nokia N9 was something that didn’t compromised on anything we knew about Nokia and still kept on amusing us. There will be very less places where we can put our fingers that its wrong here on Nokia N9. The only place, where someone gets stuck is availability of apps and uncertain future, but the same was with Nokia N900 as well. Nokia N9 came back with a strong reply to show that what Maemo\MeeGo team got into them.. what’s next? Will Nokia N9 like innovation really gonna pass?
The Million Dollar Question: Can I buy one?
I had a post on my blog back in past with a title “Nokia N8 Vs Nokia N900-Which one you want?”. WIth around 150+ comments and constant attention from people all over the world, it was such a top post on my blog since long that even if today I Google “N8 vs N900”, then that post finds its place on the result page one. This shows that how strongly Maemo\Meego been attracting people from all over the world and when such a promising platform gets support of the most beautiful phone HW ever made then … mark my words, you will live to tell people that I was there when Nokia N9 design seen the daylight for the first time.
But still, most of bloggers, very painfully suggesting people to pass on Nokia N9 for a number of reasons:
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Uncertain future: The way, technology, services changing by each passing day, future support via updates certainly becomes a lot more important for Smartphones, while in case of Nokia N9, its almost clear that there will be nominal support for the platform from Nokia itself as most of the resources will already be aligned for Windows Phones.
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Shortage of Applications: When it comes to smartphones, then more than platform itself, what matters is, how many apps are available there, how much eager developers are to develop for the platform itself. But as I wrote the first reason, the uncertainty of the platform support is the biggest hurdle in the way of development itself. Agree that Qt\QML apps can be ported from Symbian to MeeGo easily, but thing is, we already know that even Symbian is max 2013 thing development wise.
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Price point: Price always been the most important factor while buying anything and the actual price perception depends on the value for money. True! Nokia N9 is tempting device, but when it comes to value for money, then its definitely not the case, when Nokia N9 goes on sale at the same price or higher as Galaxy S II, Galaxy Nexus S or iPhone 4S, which have a very certain future.
On the other hands, I already explained that there is no device that matches the looks of Nokia N9 (barring Nokia Lumia 800), we already got Facebook, Twitter, Google integrated inside out of the box, we got the trust of Nokia connectivity and we have an unparalleled messaging experience on board, do one really wants more for a device that he\she has to live with for a max two years? Do you really think that a common consumer wants more??
Buy or not to buy.. still your call… so while you are thinking about it, why don’t you enjoy the below interesting ad of Nokia N9 from China? Read the subtitles… (Thanks to @bharadc23 for linking me to it)
"You may think I’m, crazy, And i think everyone else is too ordinary"
Nitish Kumar's Blog 
one question, how did you change the clock background to black?
Have always been trying to find out, because i read the review on theverge and they managed to changed even the calendar to a black background..
Clock background is white where you set alarm while its black where you set the system time.
I’m halfway through page 5, and… man I was so disappointed with “Ra.One”. It has NOTHING to do with this review; that comment will come later. 😀
Brother from where did you get this in India (I guess you are from India)…is there anyway I can get this device from anywhere in India…desperately need one…please tell
I got it from Nokia Connects as a review unit. No official words on Indian availability as of now.
Ok…if you had to guess that “will it come” ? what would you say ?
Maybe some time after Nokia Lumia phones ?
Well, you can always import 🙂 For example, it’s available in my country for around 600 Euros. You can send someone the money for it and have them buy it and sent to you.
You won’t get warranty in India if you import.
Better check warranty terms in nokia website. (Nokia replied)
True, but if something happens you can always send it to Nokia Care from the country you’ve imported it from, and get it fixed there. Right?
It’ll not come to India, but you can find them on eBay.in
hey thanks bro…didn’t expect that…will wait for it to drop a bit in terms of price
Less chances for an Indian launch as of now, but who knows. Nokia N900 came to India after 8 months
ya actually that thought is not allowing me to buy any other device…still using 5800
Wow .N900 now ready for India. Of course it shloud be as silence is broken, Meego would not be commercially launched for N900. So Nokia don’t want to let its smartphone sales figures come down & since latest info on N900 will not help sales figures to move up in Europe & elsewhere, the better option is to follow the imprints of Apple I.e. Launch soon going to be obselete products in Indian Market.Thank you Nokia. This time luckily I wasn’t expecting anything else.
you nailed it Nitish .. greatest phone ever made .. period .. and your review does give N9 a justice that it need .. no other phone should have a review of this length and attention to detail except N9 😀 ..
this phone has saved me from all dreadful devotion given to all the dreadful ecosystem .. you won’t believe how much I’ve spent buying apps from apple appstore without even executing half of it .. and come to think of it, I did that because I can’t never find satisfaction or sense of completeness with my last phone in its original form ..
but N9 was different .. it has everything that I ever need in a timeless beautiful form, and already I felt a sense of completeness in one aspect of my life .. I think this is the phone that I’m going to kept forever while I’m alive even if it is can’t no longer be used (I always sold my old phone/trade in when buying new phone).. seriously, I am that much of fan ..
Nitish Kumar there some inconsistency in your review.
1. .deb files you can install it as simple as enabled 3rd party installation then run file manager and run it directly no need terminal
2. soft reset the cirulating arrow doesnt mean brick it means its erasing or in progress. in the progress even u turn on and off it will still process u just need wait until it reboot itself means completed
or its that your fren
3. Account Authentication Broken: fixed in PR 1.1
1. Agree that the same can be done with File Manager itself but I was not sure that if it picks supporting files as well. Didn’t happened in case of VLC with me.
2. I waited more than 20 mins but nothing happened and then review unit was to go back, so couldn’t check.
3. My unit had PR1.1 only as I got the update before the review and it actually got broken after the update only.
What a review!! Thank you so much!! 😀
Greetings from Portugal. 😀
hi nithish… Good job… My doubt is if i buy this n9 from singapore .. Whether i will get software update in india or not through air or not.. Pls mail me
Your “issue” number 3 is not an issue at all.
This is N9 behaviour – and it is not “bricked” as you said.
You just have to be patient and wait 10-15 minutes.
Ok.! I couldn’t wait more than 30 mins as DHL guy arrived on door to pick it up 😦
I could barely make it through the first page of this review, as the English is absolutely terrible. This trend continues through the rest of your site as well. I would recommend doing some major editing.
will try mate
The noise-cancellation microphone is next to the camera flash – a 0.5mm hole. The in-device instructions indicate you shouldn’t cover this location during a call if you enable noise-cancellation.
Maybe I missed it but can you :pause/play/forward/back the music player on the included earphones button? Is there a volume control too?
As I wrote, the one shipped with it is a minimal one with one button only.
Regards Nitish Kumar @nkumar_
The Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone smartphone is a power packed product with many amazing features like an 8 MP Camera, Microsoft Windows 7.5 OS, a 1.4 GHz processor with 512 MB RAM, People Hub, XBOX gaming, among other things. But one feature that takes the cake here is Nokia Drive. Nokia Drive is a GPS app with a voice guided turn-by-turn navigation system which helps you when you are out travelling. And the best bit about it is that it is completely free!
Nokia Drive also saves your search history so that the user can easily get traffic updates to their regular commutes. This also means you can quite easily select any of your previous destinations. The fact that Nokia Drive has a database of over 100 countries and that it can be used offline as well, is something that will really click with the viewers.
The only thing I have not found in any review is a perspective or voice dialing.
Voice quality in most of Nokia phones is always top notch, something that we take for granted, so missed to mention again.
Regards Nitish Kumar @nkumar_
What I meant was regarding voice control…
What was your impression on Battert Life?
Battery life is OK. Much better over Nokia N900 but not better over Nokia E6/E7/N8
Regards Nitish Kumar @nkumar_
Your article has preovn useful to me. It’s very informative and you are obviously very knowledgeable in this area. You have opened my eyes to varying views on this topic with interesting and solid content.The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s. It works well, but isn’t as fast as Safari, and has a clunkier interface. If you occasionally plan on using the web browser that’s not an issue, but if you’re planning to browse the web alot from your PMP then the iPod’s larger screen and better browser may be important.Interesting website, i read it but i still have a few questions. shoot me an email and we will talk more becasue i may have an interesting idea for you.
This will get you traffic to your site and make money.
A VPN creates an encrypted connection to a third-party server, and all your
Internet traffic is routed through that server. Daily, even hourly,
businesses can see how many individuals clicked on their ads
and the traffic that is being driven to their website.
Understanding both advantages and disadvantages are important in order to choose the best internet marketing strategy.
However Yahoo marketing and other pay per click search engines
offer some excellent traffic at a more reasonable price.
Daily, even hourly, businesses can see how many individuals
clicked on their ads and the traffic that is being
driven to their website.
The backend part of your company supports these profit centers.
As the culture of internet slang grew, it took on new origins from pop culture or video games and television.
It’s probably some mix of the two, so I have to give him props for
not going too far in either direction.
They are a very good way to promote business service. In addition, many of the words used started to take on
slightly different meanings, depending on the context in which they are used.
It’s probably some mix of the two, so I have to give
him props for not going too far in either direction.
Hello, I think your site might be having browser
compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it
has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads
up! Other then that, awesome blog!