Nokia's new N9 smartphone not for India launch

In what may come as a let down to Nokia fans in countries like India that have strongly supported the Finnish company, Nokia's latest smartphone N9 would not be available in India even as it launches in Austria, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, and Vietnam.

According to industry watchers, the absence of countries like the US is understandable as the company does not have carrier support for its devices there. They say for India the company may follow strategy it followed for N900 which was launched in the Indian market a few months after its launch in other countries.

The new smartphone in the company's flagship N-series, comes with in a curved design and features a 3.9-inch active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display.

The N9 smartphone will be available in three colours – black, cyan and magenta and would offer storage of 16GB and 64GB. The smartphone would ship with an 8-MP camera that allows for autofocus and "HD-quality video capture."

Unlike its predecessor, the Nokia N8, the N9 is powered by  MeeGo, a Linux-based mobile operating system that the company is looking to as a future go-to platform for the company.

A Nokia spokesperson had told Reuters last year that following the N8, the new N series devices would be based on MeeGo. At the time, Nokia's other smartphones were to have worked on Symbian.