Tech n Gadgets Blog: The Nokia N950 MeeGo device exists, confirmation from Nokia

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Nokia N950 MeeGo device exists, confirmation from Nokia

But only as a developer's build
The Nokia N950 MeeGo device exists, confirmation from Nokia. phones, mobile phones, Nokia N9, Nokia N950, MeeGo, Nokia 0

So the N9 has arrived in the real world, packing MeeGo - as we all suspected that it would. But hang on, that's not the device that we'd all envisioned based on the pictures of the silver QWERTY-slider device that had been doing the rounds.

So what of that device, what the heck was it if not the N9?

Well, chances are that it was, in fact, the Nokia N950 - which the Finnish phone giant has announced with a whisper. No fuss, no post on the Nokia blog - just an entry on the Nokia developers site.

And therein lies the answer - for the MeeGo touting N950, which boasts the same 1GHz OMAP3630 processor and PowerVR SGX530 graphics as the N9, isn't likely to come to market and is instead a device for developers to hone their MeeGo skills on.

According to the release notes, the N950 "is not a commercial device, the quality and/feature set of N950 is of beta quality and comes without any warranty or support whatsoever".

It has roughly the same spec sheet as per its N9 MeeGo brethren bar a physical slide-out QWERTY, a slightly larger screen at 4-inches (the N9 is 3.9-inches) but with the same 854x480 resolution - albeit a TFT rather than AMOLED display - a slightly different camera and a different version of Bluetooth.

There's also no NFC support on the N950 and a slightly less powerful battery.

As mentioned, it's not likely to come to the mass market and pricing and availability for developers is still unclear.

Update: The pictured device definitely is the N950, proof in the Accuweather demo video below:

UPDATE 2: UK operator 3's product manager has tweeted that he has a Nokia N950 complete with picture of the new phone. It's black and featured below.