I remember my first Nokia. It was the 5110 — a chunky, awkward beast of a handset that I received as a birthday gift. My pockets bulged. It was just plain ugly. And the antenna eventually broke off.

More than 10 years later, Nokia’s phones look a hell of a lot better. The design of the company’s recently released N9 was two years in the making, and looks like it was lifted straight from a high-end industrial design magazine. We spent some time with an N9 this week, and dug deep into the entire N9 gestalt to see if the phone runs as smooth as it looks.

I dig the stripped-down, simplified...