Nokia N9 for sale in the USA, will cost you $690, but at least you get free shipping(Photo)

The Nokia N9, one of the most controversial devices to ever come out of Finland, is now available in the United States. You can order it for $690 from Expansys, an online retailer we thoroughly recommend for those of you who want to get your hands on the latest handsets coming out in Europe and Asia. Before you

do however, realize that it’s going to be the one and only device to run MeeGo, it’s not going to get that much official support since it’s shipped in limited quantities, but on the bright side it supports both AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s 3G networks. Now while we didn’t review the N9, the folks at Engadget and The Verge did and both sites have absolutely fallen in love with it. Myriam Joire (Engadget) said: “The N9 delivers a double punch with gorgeous hardware and brilliant software. It’s arguably the first competitive flagship phone to come out of Espoo since the launch of the original iPhone.” And Vlad Savov (The Verge) said: “The N9 is flawed and doomed, but you have to understand, I don’t care. The overriding experience of using this phone is one of delight and desire.”

If you’re the type of person who doesn’t care about apps and needs nothing more than an alarm clock, music player, web browser, and camera, then by all means pick up the Nokia N9. If you’re a gamer however, and you’re looking to buy a new smartphone, you owe it to yourself to get an iPhone since it’s THE platform for casual mobile games. And then of course there’s the gear head, the nerd who wants bleeding edge top of the lines everything. If that accurately describes you then there’s only one smartphone we can think of to satisfy your needs: the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

We’re curious, are you going to pick one up? If so, why?

Apple agrees to pay Nokia patent licensing fees

Apple has agreed to license wireless phone patents owned by Nokia that sparked a long-running legal dispute between the two companies. The deal will settle all patent litigation between Nokia and Apple, and the two will withdraw their respective complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission. In addition, Apple will pay Nokia an undisclosed one-time fee and on-going royalties, Nokia said today. "We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees," Stephen Elop, president and chief

executive officer of Nokia, said in a statement. "This settlement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market." Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The legal skirmishing began in October 2009 when Nokia sued Apple in over 10 wireless handset patents the Finnish phone maker said it owned. The 10 patents, which Apple reportedly refused to license, related to making phones able to run on GSM, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks. They include patents on wireless data, speech coding, security, and encryption, according to Nokia. Apple filed a countersuit in December 2009, charging Nokia with infringing 13 Apple patents related to the iPhone. In its suit, Apple denied Nokia's claims of copyright violations and said the licenses Nokia insists Apple pay were "unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory" and "non-essential" to the iPhone. The dispute escalated later that month when Nokia lodged a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, accusing Apple of infringing seven Nokia patents "in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers." A Delaware court put the lawsuits on hold in March 2010, pending the U.S. International Trade Commission's decisions on the matter. Apple then took its fight to the U.K. in September 2010, accusing Nokia of infringing on 9 patents it owned. However, a judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in March that Apple was not in violation of five of Nokia's patents.

Windows Phone Mango Update: Android and iPhone Challenger?

Will Microsoft’s upcoming software update for its Windows Phones, codenamed “Mango,” affect the company’s smartphone prospects? Certainly Mango represents a substantial revamp of Microsoft’s mobile platform, which is struggling for adoption in the face competition from Google Android and Apple’s iPhone. In contrast to those platforms, which offer grid-like screens of individual apps, Windows Phone consolidates Web content and applications into a set of subject-specific Hubs, including “Office” and “People.” As Microsoft executives demonstrated for a small group of media and analysts during a May 24 press event in New York City, the new features include a redesigned Xbox Live Hub, home-screen tiles capable of displaying up-to-the-minute information such as instant messages and social-networking data, the ability to consolidate friends and colleagues into groups, and visual voicemail.

All in all, Microsoft is planning to add some 500 new elements to Windows Phone. Mango will be released sometime this fall. That’s some distance away for a company wrestling to hold onto its market-share. Although research firm Gartner estimated that Windows Phone sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011, recent data from comScore suggests that Microsoft’s share of the overall smartphone market continues to erode—a situation probably not helped by some well-publicized snafus with the first two Windows Phone software updates. Even if the pre-Mango Windows Phone continues a slide in market-share, Microsoft has managed to secure some long-term commitments from its manufacturing partners. “We have some Windows Mango phones,” HTC CEO Peter Chou reportedly told Reuters May 25. “We are very committed to Windows phone products.” However, he offered no guidance on when those new devices might appear. Analysts generally view Microsoft’s deal with Nokia, which will see Windows Phone ported onto the latter’s smartphones, as a chance for the Windows Phone platform to gain some additional momentum—at least overseas, where Nokia continues to maintain a strong presence despite challenges from Android and iOS. In addition to HTC and Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics have apparently committed to building new Windows Phone devices preloaded with Mango. Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE are also planning to produce Windows Phone devices for the first time. In other words, Windows Phone isn’t exactly in danger of dying within the next couple of months—especially since it represents an all-or-nothing bet by Microsoft in the increasingly important mobile space. The question is whether a Mango-enhanced Windows Phone can draw users who haven’t already gravitated towards Microsoft’s offering. Here the question becomes more problematic. Certainly a more robust smartphone platform helps spark increased adoption—for an example of that, look no further than Android, which has seen its market-share increase with each successive version. But all the new gizmos in the world won’t help a platform that people don’t inherently find attractive or useful in their daily lives. For enterprise users, Mango offers some key additions, including the ability to search a server for email items no longer stored to a device, and share and save Office documents via Office 365 and Windows SkyDrive. That could help drive Microsoft’s share among business users. For consumers, the revamped Xbox Live and features like multitasking could make Windows Phone a more enticing prospect. Mango also introduces unique applications like Local Scout, which offers a view of everything to see and do in a particular neighborhood, and an enhanced “People” Hub that includes Twitter feeds. Despite all those new features, Windows Phone has one weak spot: number of apps available for download. In contrast to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace, which respectively boast hundreds of thousands of apps, Windows Phone’s online storefront boasts only a few thousand. While Microsoft executives argue that the apps’ quality eclipses the need for quantity, the fact remains that smartphone platforms with thriving ecosystems—i.e., Apple and Google—have seen their market-share only increase, while those with comparatively few apps—Palm and Research In Motion come to mind—have seen their device adoption rates soften over several quarters. Microsoft continues to push developers to build apps for Windows Phone. And Mango will be a giant step forward in the company’s attempts to offer a smartphone platform on par with Android and the iPhone. The question is whether those app-developer efforts—and Mango’s new features—will give Microsoft the momentum it needs to take Windows Phone from an also-ran to a major contender.

RIM CMO Out on Eve of Playbook Tablet Launch

RIM might be close to making its tablet debut with its upcoming Playbook, but there's one thing that won't be accompanying this device to the market: an ongoing chief marketing officer.

According to a Friday report by the Wall Street Journal, RIM's chief marketing officer Keith Pardy is leaving the company following a six-month transition period. 

According to a statement by RIM, "personal reasons" are behind the departure, but there's been no elaboration—official or otherwise—as to what those could be. Pardy allegedly made the decision to depart a month ago.

RIM poached Pardy from Nokia in late 2009. The departure now leaves RIM without an executive on top mere weeks before the company is expected to launch its flagship Playbook table—either in late March or early April, depending on which batch of rumors you subscribe to. However, according to IHS iSuppli analyst Rhoda Alexander, the executive departure isn't likely to affect the Playbook's launch.

"Hopefully, when you're weeks away from product release, you've laid most of the groundwork for the marketing efforts," said Alexander in an interview with Reuters. "Others can execute the groundwork that's been laid out."

Although RIM still enjoys considerable success amongst U.S. smartphone owners—it's currently tied with Apple for a 27 percent market share, says The Neilsen Company--jumping into the Apple-focused tablet market is another battle entirely. According to the latest figures from Strategy Analytics, Apple cruised to a 95.5-percent tablet market share in the third quarter of 2010 before dropping to 75.3 percent in the fourth quarter. Over all of 2010, however, Apple commanded 84.1 percent of the tablet market, with Android-based devices barely making a dent at 13.1 percent.

A total of 9.7 million tablet devices sold globally made up the aforementioned fourth-quarter statistics. That's an important number, because Digitimes has reported that RIM allegedly expects to sell one million playbooks in the first quarter of 2011. Pretending, for a moment, that those sales occurred in the fourth quarter of 2010, one million Playbooks sold would have put the RIM at a market share of 9.35 percent.

But remember, by the time the RIM Playbook's launch rolls around, it will be staring down the barrel of two of the market's fiercest competitors: Apple's iPad 2, and what's been heralded as the first true Android-based competitor to the iPad, Motorola's Xoom. With these two heavyweights duking it out, one million units sold for RIM's Playbook could be a difficult target to hit—and might not give RIM even ten percent market share in the aftermath.