Nokia N9 running Android ICS

The most impressive part of a N9 next to hardware design, is its system-platform MeeGo Harmattan. But those who don't want to be limited to MeeGo might soon have a very well running port of Android ICS ("Ice Cream Sandwich") called NITDroid which allows to use two systems on the N9 with dual-boot.

The guys (mainly Alexey Roslyakov) from NITDroid are working on a project called "Project Mayhem" and reached Alpha-status of their Android port.

NitDroid might always remain a project which is rather dedicated to experimental users. But it's very impressive to see what the N9 is able to do and why not rather have two platforms on one phone than buying two different devices? The recent Alpha-version shows that the port was successful. Many drivers for the N9 were found and basic tasks are already possible. The video below how Android works actually pretty well and fast.

Android ICS on N9

Of course it is still a huge step to a stable final-version. Essential functions like Wi-Fi don't work yet, but others like audio, USB networking, cellphone network (GPRS, EDGE, 3G) as well as Bluetooth and more are usable. Next of having MeeGo Harmattan and Android on a single phone, the user can take advantage of the huge variety of applications made for both platforms. Speaking of Android applications: It still would be preferable to have a possibility to run Android applications directly on MeeGo Harmattan. The native N9 platform is ahead of Android OS in design, performance and usability and even has applications you would miss on this second platform - maintaining two platforms at once just for a bunch of applications won't be a solution for most users. 

In case you can't wait to try out NITDroid on your N9... please still wait!  If you have a separate device and knowledge to try such things out: More informations are available for you at NITDroid Forum with various instructions and a checklist of working features.

NITDroid for Nokia N9 is still far away from a final version or even an usable public release. Nice to see though that the N9 is able to run two amazing platforms at once with the given hardware. Those news will certainly push the popularity of N9 and we will keep an eye on Android for N9.

An author of MyNokiaBlog even managed to install for the first time three different operation systems on Nokia N9: MeeGo, and Android and Nemo (Linux based operation system based on Mer OS). More about that here.

Also have a look at the new Angry Birds Space played on a Nokia N9 with Android - this video shows well, how good this Alpha-version of NITDroid already runs: