[6] It was initially released in three colors: black, cyan and magenta, before a white version was announced at Nokia World 2011.

Despite a limited release,[7] the N9 received widespread critical acclaim, with some describing it as Nokia's finest device to date.

It was praised for both its software and hardware, including the MeeGo operating system, buttonless 'swipe' user interface, and its high-end features.

A software engineer working for Nokia's device division cited the N9-00 (the product number) in the public bug tracker for Qt, an open source application development framework used in MeeGo.

[11] On 11 February 2011 Nokia partnered with Microsoft to use Windows Phone 7 as the flagship operating system to replace Symbian, with MeeGo also sidelined.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop promised to still ship one MeeGo device that year, which would end up as the N9.

After the N9's positive reception and generally weak sales of its Lumia range, Elop was criticised for this move, which has been said by some to have contributed to the company's demise in the smartphone market.

[30] In Germany, devices imported from Switzerland are available online from Amazon and German Cyberport GmbH.

The Nokia N9 is powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 3630 which is a System-on-a-chip based on a 45 nanometer CMOS process.

[34] Nokia N9 has a 3.9-inch (99 mm) capacitive touchscreen (up to 6 simultaneous points) with a resolution of 854 × 480 pixels (FWVGA, 251 ppi) in PenTile RGBG layout.

The gap between the glass and the display has been reduced and the screen is coated with an anti-glare polarizer to ease the usability in daylight.

Typically, a 16:9 picture format on a digital camera is achieved by cropping the top and bottom of a 4:3 image, since the sensor is 4:3.

Nokia N9 genuinely provides more in the width of the picture by choosing the 16:9 aspect ratio option by using the full 3552-pixel width of the sensor, and more in the height of the picture by choosing the 4:3 aspect ratio option by using the full 2448-pixel height of the sensor.

The Nokia N9 has fewer hardware buttons than most smartphones and makes extensive use of the touchscreen to navigate the user interface.

The second microphone is located on the back of the device near the flash LEDs and main camera, it is used by MeeGo system for noise cancellation which make phone conversations clearer in noisy environment.

Tapping on the status bar on the top of the screen while using an application will display a menu allowing the user to adjust the volume, change the active profile (silent, beep & ringing), Internet connection (WiFi, GSM data), bluetooth control shortcut (if enabled in Bluetooth settings), media sharing (DLNA) shortcut (if enabled in media sharing settings which was introduced in PR 1.2) and availability.

The reception for the device has been very positive, citing the MeeGo v1.2 Harmattan UI, pseudo-buttonless design, polycarbonate unibody construction and its NFC capabilities.

Engadget's editor Vlad Savov said in June 2011 that "it's a terrific phone that's got me legitimately excited to use it, but its future is clouded by a parent that's investing its time and money into building up a whole other OS.

"[47] In a later review, Engadget writes: "Love at first sight — this is possibly the most beautiful phone ever made," and "MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan is such a breath of fresh air it will leave you gasping — that is, until you remember that you're dealing with a dead man walking.

"[2] In a review for Ars Technica, Ryan Paul writes: "The N9 is an impressively engineered device that is matched with a sophisticated touch-oriented interface and a powerful software stack with open source underpinnings.

[53] The Nokia N9 has not been released in most of the largest smartphone markets such as the U.S., Canada, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and others.

[54] In November 2011, the Nokia N9 won 3 out of 4 applicable titles (including design, camera and cellphone of the year) at a gala held by Swedish magazine and webzine Mobil.se.

[citation needed] Hundreds of 3rd party applications, mostly free and open source, have already been created or ported to the Linux MeeGo Harmattan platform.

The original MeeGo open source code was developed further in frames of Mer (software distribution) which comes from MEego Reinstated and has established current standard of the middleware stack core, so software above a kernel and below a UI of OS, what's more it is open source and free for vendors.

The Harmattan UI and several software applications used in the N9 was closed and proprietary of Nokia, hence could not be used neither in MER project nor Sailfish OS.

So Jolla introduced its own swipe UI, used MER core standard and created Sailfish OS.

As the N950 has similar technical specifications as the N9, with slight differences including a physical QWERTY keyboard, this led many owners of the N9 to believe that Sailfish OS can be ported to the N9.

[65] Jolla confirmed this, but also stated that it has no "official possibilities" for such kind of support for the N9, and instead the community will provide the unofficial port for Sailfish OS.