"First look" at Nokia's N9-style Windows Phone - exciting!

The video below apparently came from the Far East. It purports to show a Nokia N9-styled device operating Windows Phone 7. Matt over at The Next Web describes the phone as having ‘a near identical design to the Meego-powered Nokia N9’.

Now then, here’s what you need to do. Definitely watch the video. Keep the sound down low, there’s nothing interesting there. I’d like you to spend a bit of time admiring the device. Whether it’s official or not, this is a super exercise. I want you to have a close look and see if anything happens to your mindset.

For me, my mindset shifted slightly on Nokia. If they can provide an N9 (or, for that matter, an N8) running Windows Phone 7, with a brilliant, BRILLIANT camera experience, along with the usual Nokia gubbins (decent call quality, battery, machinery) then I’m interested. Very interested.

So whether it’s real or imagined, it’s rather exciting to explore the possibility of Nokia releasing a simply brilliant top-of-the-line device into the market.

Windows Phone 7 is good. It’s rather elegant. Evolve the experience to include Nokia’s historic device strengths and the offering becomes compelling.

My worry is that Nokia will actually ship a mid-level ‘meh’ device that plays well with the bottom end of the market but cannot be spoken of in the same breath as iPhone 5 or one of the HTC Android handsets. The media will bury Nokia. (Incidentally, this is an issue that Rafe Blandford and I almost came to blows over — in a constructive manner — on a recent 361 Degrees podcast. Do check it out!)

Here’s the embed video: