Nokia Showcases New N9 Smartphone

Nokia

announced a new smartphone on Tuesday, featuring a 3.9-inch AMOLED screen made from scratch-resistant curved glass and an 8-megapixel HD-quality-capable video camera. Videos can be experienced in 16:9 widescreen format and the N9 is the world's first smartphone with Dolby Digital Plus decoding and Dolby Headphone post-processing technology. "With the Nokia N9, we wanted to design a better way to use a phone. To do this we innovated in the design of the hardware and software together. We reinvented the home key with a simple gesture: a swipe from the edge of the screen. The experience sets a new bar for how natural technology can feel," said Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia's head of Design. "And this is just the beginning. The details that make the Nokia N9 unique - the industrial design, the all-screen user experience, and the expressive Qt framework for developers - will evolve in future Nokia products." Initial reviews appear to be positive. Engadget writer Vlad Savov writes that "What we can say about all these aspects of the interface is that they're done exceedingly well and make the somewhat aged OMAP3630 processor look terrific. Fluid animation are evident throughout, navigation is natural, and this marks a major advance to anything else Nokia has given us on the software front in terms of touch-based UI." Nokia has recently been attempting to revamp its phone lineup in light of intense smartphone competition. It joins a market where Apple

, Google (NASDAQ GOOG), and Research in Motion

all offer reasonable offerings.