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The event: The world’s largest handset vendor used its annual ‘Nokia World‘ event – this year held in Stuttgart, Germany to showcase some its new devices, solutions and handsets.

The devices: The wow device of Nokia World 2009 is without a doubt the N900 with its panorama desktop and full browsing experience bridging the gap between smartphones and internet tablets. Nokia’s N97 mini is a smaller version of its predecessor, and features a tilting 3.2 inch display, QWERTY keyboard and a customisable homescreen. Nokia’s new X3 and X6 music phones will launch in the fourth quarter. Both new X-series devices support Nokia’s unlimited download Comes With Music service. The Nokia X6 is considered more of a 5800XM upgrade with a better camera and more on-board storage along with WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, A-GPS, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack and a capacitive touchscreen (Nokia’s first capacitive touchscreen phone)

What to think of the devices? N97mini will try to further boost the sales of the N97 line (N97+N97mini) without much differentiation between the two. The Ovi Store is included on the X3 and is the first Series 40 device with this support. The Nokia X6 is an interesting device and a good way to boost Comes with Music sales around christmas. It’s somewhat pricey bundled with the CWM offering but after a couple of months Nokia will sell the X6 for a cheaper price without the CWM. For that money, this might be the best allround device announced at Nokia World. It is thin, sleek and elegant, and features a large capacitive touch screen display with plenty of storage.

Nokia announced its new step in the netbook market with its 3G Netbook an Intel Atom powered netbook that comes with an HDMI port for HD video out, a front facing camera, integrated Bluetooth and an integrated A-GPS with a 3G cellular modem and WiFi.

My opinion on Nokia’s take on netbooks: The pricey yet well differntiated premium built netbook won’t sell bucketloads but it’s a nice way for Nokia to extend it’s brand and service offerings. With this netbook Nokia’s making a statement that they’re shifting into an “internet-solutions-driven” company trying to capture a marketshare in whats described as an extremely crowded, highly competitive market with razor-thin margins.

New services and updates? By now we all know that Nokia is focusing on services as much as they are hardware. The focus during the opening keynote was on three services focused: Ovi Maps gets an update, Ovi Lifecasting integrates Facebook, and “Nokia Messaging – Social Messaging” Beta gets an update too.

Ovi Lifecasting is a Facebook application that is more heavily focused on the location sharing aspects and functions in Nokia devices (limited beta availability, designed for N97 owners)

Ovi Maps Beta includes the following improvements over the previous version, but is only compatible with the N97, N97 mini, 5800 XM and 5800 Navigation Edition.

Nokia Messaging – Social Messaging is basically an updated Facebook client within the Nokia Messaging service that traditionally has been associated with email in the past and is now expanding into other messaging methods.

Opinion on Nokia, Maemo and the N900: Nokia’s strike at the highend smartphone marks without a doubt that it’s serious with Maemo OS and try to place it where it belongs, in the front row seat alongside Android, Pre and the Iphone OS. The N900 will definitely appeal to early adopters and webnatives but be warned it comes at a cost, right now the Maemo5 platform is still in very early development phase or else you would’ve seen Nokia spitting out a whole line of Maemo devices already. It will take  months of regular updates and tweaks before it reaches solid performance with decent everyday battery life (I guess that’s the price you pay being an early adopter trying new devices before the majority of buyers)

And this is where my biggest concern is – the Maemo5 platform on the N900 is still far from being a mainstream platform for the majority of potential users unlike other competitors highend platforms that’s been out there tested and improved upon for a couple of years now. Nokia’s ahead of it’s competition in many ways and here I’m only adressing some points where it’s lagging behind. On the positive side of things, I’m glad that the platform finally left the closed doors beta trialing and is out in the open for the public. I still have confidence in Nokia’s active tradition of adressing software issues with regular updates and the future of Maemo as a platform looks bright on paper with lots of potential. I will follow it’s progress with interest and see how well Nokia adresses its shortcomings. Make no mistake: with Maemo5 and the N900 Nokia is on an offensive mode to regain it’s highend image. It builds on the weaknesses where the Symbian platform percieved to be dull and boring at the same it gives Nokia playroom to try fresh approaches, keep innovating in the highend offerings plus it can attract sustainable partners and developers.

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