The American website phonenews.com has an exclusive story about the N9 being now officially sold in the United States. American N9 users usually have to import the Nokia phone from other countries or buy them at stores which separately imported them. This might change now: Phonenews.com claims that "Nokia today quietly initiated sales of the Nokia N9 in the United States" and refers to an weekly advertisement of Fry's Electronics (store and retailer for consumer electronics) which shows the N9 being sold for $599.We don't know how reliable this source is since Nokia has nothing announced, nor confirmed. So far the N9 wasn't findable in the smartphone product catalog of Fry's Electronics. Furthermore it would be very confusing compared to what we heard yesterday (read more about that here). If those news were true, it would mean that Nokia is not very convinced about the "Windows Phone-only" strategy and needs to have more income from a profitable smartphone. Or was it the recent shareholder meeting which would have made the management think differently?
Nokia N9 was initially created to operate in the United States and the unlocked version can be used with any carrier.
"It (Nokia N9) was designed to operate on multiple American carriers, with a competitive software platform that could truly have tackled both Apple’s strengths, and Android’s weaknesses."Phonenews.com also praises how advanced the N9 is and the openness of MeeGo Harmattan.
"The Nokia N9′s MeeGo-compatible operating system has three things that no operating system on phones today offer. First, it’s a real-time operating system. Second, it has no antitrust-grade restrictions on developer innovations… there are no walled gardens. And third, it’s unlocked to run on any compatible carrier.It’s unfortunate that no other smartphone in the United States today, meets that criteria."Unfortunately the price to pay is high: $599 is a lot and money, even newer phones are cheaper to have. This certainly will scare some potential customers away.
Either way we hope that those news are true, even though we have our doubts. The United States is a huge market for mobile phones and we are sure that in the very iPhone and Android dominated market, there are many people who are looking for something like the Nokia N9. But like mentioned in the beginning of the article, Americans can already buy imported N9s in their country through certain retailers.
Please have a look at the original article at phonenews.com, which has some more details to read about.
Thanks for the tip and link: Jonathan M. via Email and comments by Twitter users
