We were very excited to get our paws on the curvy goodness of the Nokia N9 but were as excited about its MeeGo operating system as we are about repainting our fence. Mercifully, a close relative of the N9, called the Sea Ray, has surfaced sporting Windows Phone Mango, and we can take a close look at it in this hands-on video straight out of the development factory.
The video -- shown on wpcentral -- shows the Sea Ray (not to be confused with a stingray, Blu-ray or X-ray) being carefully handled by a bloke who just can't wait to show off the Windows Phone Mango held within.
The Sea Ray itself looks remarkably similar to the Nokia N9 we were introduced to earlier this year -- it has the same sleek "pillow-shaped" design with a curved Gorilla Glass touchscreen that takes up the whole front of the device. Like the N9, the Sea Ray has done away with physical front buttons. The only ones you'll find are on the side for volume controls and a camera shutter button.
The flash on the back seems to be in a different place to the N9, which may indicate that the camera itself will be different. We hope not though -- the N9's camera, with its wide f/2.2 aperture and 8-megapixel sensor, was rather attractive.
We're very happy to see Windows Phone Mango on the new device though. The N9 is due to run Nokia's MeeGo operating system -- it may look like a fairly swish piece of software but the N9 is probably going to be the only phone to run it, so updates will be pretty scarce and you can forget about a well-stocked app store. Mango is a much riper option and will give us our first taste of Windows Phone running on a Nokia handset. Colour us excited.
There's no word on when we're likely to see this phone in stores, but it looks like a fairly finished product so we wouldn't be surprised to see an announcement soon.
If you want to Sea Ray (see what we did there?), check out the video below and leave us your thoughts in the comments or over on our official Facebook page.
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Comments 10
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anonymous 19 July, 2011 11:36
Urgh, It looks exactly the same as every other Windows Phone
Anonymous 19 July, 2011 12:10
Couldn't agree more, just another identical Windows phone. I'll get the Meego N9, at least I could get that Davlik app so i can use Android apps. However full points to Nokia for disguising a Windows phone to look like a Nokia. Any loyal Nokia buyer will get excited by the phone until they turn it on, then realising its just another sterile Windows phone.
J4M35 19 July, 2011 12:23
Stunning device. Windows Phone 7 is great, so do shut up :)
Flora Graham 19 July, 2011 12:34
Alien Dalvik isn't going to be a straight-up app you can install on the N9, it requires too much integration with the OS. So I'd beware of assuming you can get Android apps on the N9, unless you're prepared to do some serious hacking, or pray that someone else builds a ROM you can use.
jamesfed 19 July, 2011 13:45
@Peter - part of the Windows Phone idea is to sit in between Andoird (which allows total customisation of hardware/software) and iOS (which means no customisation - you get what Apple gives you).
So Windows Phone gets the benifit of OEMs designing their own hardware (Nokia going into things like fancy cameras) while keeping the UI locked down to ensure that the software runs just right.
anonymous 19 July, 2011 14:51
Im not saying that WinPhone7 is bad. I really like the look of it. I'm getting a WinPhone7 device to replace my 3GS soon,
What I'm saying is that the only thing that is stopping me getting one is that whilst the OS looks good, the handsets are are all identical, line up a bunch of the current windows handsets and you would be hard pressed to tell them apart. What WinPhone7 needs to properly launch it is a really standout, brilliant handset. I had hoped that Nokia would be the ones to do it, but this looks like another black rectangle. I just thought that Nokia would do something more interesting
Anonymous 19 July, 2011 16:13
I have to laugh when people say it looks like every other WP7 handset and then go on to say
that they want the N9.
it would be nice if WP7 could offer up some colour like a blue version of this handset but as Elop has stated which i think everyone has missed their is going to be a family of phones coming not just the one handset.
Dean Shepherd 19 July, 2011 16:40
reminds me of the old saying "you can have it in any colour, as long as its black"
anonymous 19 July, 2011 21:22
just buy a goot android phone and get luncher 7 for it you get the looks of wp7 but the apps of android
anonymous 19 July, 2011 23:37
my windows phone 7 samsung focus looks sexier than this. the specs are not topping anything. why wouldn't they do something earth shattering to get some attention. is this for real? i dont see why they would release this, it is crap compared to the new htc and samsungs coming this fall.