Veteran mobile phone maker Nokia looks set to tackle the huge smartphone market this summer with the much-anticipated launch of its long-awaited N9 phone. This new model not only has a really amazing look, but also a new operating system in the form of the Meego platform that has been developed in collaboration with Intel. The N9 is the successor to the popular N8 phone, but what differences can we expect from this long-awaited new model?

As you would expect from any new model, the Nokia N9’s screen has undergone some changes and dwarfs what the N8 had to offer. Nokia has decided to give us an unusually sized screen with the phone’s 3.9-inch display and it fits nicely between ultra-large models like the HTC Desire HD and more average-sized models like the iPhone 4 and HTC Desire S. Incorporating excellent AMOLED technology, the screen uses its high resolution of 480 x 854 to produce natural color depth as well as excellent viewing angles. The Nokia N8 also uses the same AMOLED system but offers a lower resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. If we look at these two screens in terms of what they offer in terms of pixels per square inch, the new model stands out with its 238 against the 209 offered by the N8. Both phones use Gorilla Glass, which not only improves the screen’s scratch-resistant properties, but also helps prevent it from shattering if the phone is accidentally dropped.

Despite offering an excellent camera feature, the Nokia N9 struggles to match the N8 in this area. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Nokia really built the N8 as the ultimate camera phone complete with its staggering 12-megapixel resolution that no phone has yet bettered. Although the phone was exceptional in this department, let’s not ignore the fact that the N9 still delivers excellent results in both still photography and video capture. Snapshots offer a high resolution of 8 million pixels and extra quality is offered by Carl Zeiss optics which Nokia has once again chosen to use just as it did on the N8. As you’d expect from any modern smartphone, video capture delivers high-definition quality in the 720P standard, which not only looks great on the phone’s screen, but also when transferred to a compatible big-screen TV. The biggest problem many users had with Nokia phones was the Symbian operating system they used. This often disappointed models as the interface seemed dated and the platform struggled to compete with Android and iOS. Nokia has taken note of this and has developed Meego, which is a much more visually attractive system and offers functionality much more in line with what we can expect from other smartphones.

The Nokia N8 was an attractive phone that offered a lot of features and the N9 has just taken it up a notch by offering improvements in most areas, but most notably in the design of the phones and the excellent new operating system that it uses.