... but was wrong :P

It's a subtle point, and won't matter much to users to be honest, but it really isn't MeeGo - it's compatible (to a degree) with MeeGo, but the N9's core OS is Maemo. The most visible sign of this is that N9 apps are packaged as .deb packages, where "real" MeeGo uses RPM.

It's well documented that MeeGo was not in any fit state to give to consumers, and wasn't going to be for at least another 18 months, which left Nokia with a problem - they were spending money to develop a handset, and had no OS to run on it (afaik, Nokia don't have a version of Symbian for ARM Cortex devices, so be grateful that that option wasn't open). The solution was to revert to a known-good OS build, Maemo, and port the Harmattan applications to it. The result is officially "Maemo 6 Harmattan".

The objective wasn't to produce a MeeGo device, but to produce an OS capable of running Qt and the Harmattan UI, which is why the N9 was only ever described as "MeeGo 1.2 compatible", and even that was buried in the small-print.

(btw, I'm male, but you're not the first person to mis-assign my name, and there was no offence taken in any case)

No it ISN'T MeeGo

Harmattan was NOT the N900/Maemo 5 platform. Harmattan is Maemo6 a mix bag of Maemo5 and MeeGo.

High megapixels do not equate to better pictures. With a small sensor it actually can increase the noise in a picture. Less can be more..

Camera resolution

I've not used the camera on either the N8 or N9 so can't compare them, but a greater resolution does not in any way guarantee an increase in picture quality, and often reduces it. The megapixel count just tells you how many pixels there are, it doesn't cover the quality of the image they capture. Increasing resolution on a given sensor size just means smaller pixels - and these capture light worse than larger ones.

Higher resolutions can be useful for cropping images or for printing, but for viewing on a camera or a monitor it's generally better to have a lower megapixel count. If you think about it, even a modern 20" widescreen monitor at 1600x900 resolution can only display a 1.4MP image. Any more than that is only going to be visible by zooming into the image.

Different, not better, but beats N8 in a couple of things

The N9 camera is 8 MP, but it's 8MP *regardless* of the aspect ratio chosen by the user. N8's 12MP camera drops to only 9MP when used in 16:9 mode; for 12MP you need to use 4:3. There's also a much wider field of view in 16:9 on N9 than with any other camera. Switching to 16:9 really does give you a wider field of view.

Also, the lens maximum aperture is now f/2.2, which is a nearly a stop brighter than the N8's f/2.8. 2.2 in a mobile camera is unheard of, and will go a long way to overcoming any low-light issues from the N9's slightly smaller sensor (shorter lens-to-sensor distance means a smaller sensor).

LED flash is a downside, even a "20% brighter" LED can't match a Xenon unit, but you get the advantage of having a flashlight, I suppose...

Details here:

http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/06/27/damian-dinning-on-nokia-n9-imaging/

The one-sensor/two-aspect-ratios thing really is one of those "why didn't anyone else think of that" moments...