What's in a number? The Nokia N8 and Nokia N9 aren't far apart in Nokia's when it comes to Nokia's naming conventions, but how different are they in reality? Quite a bit, actually! Join us as we line up these N Series superstars up side by side for a comparison.

Nokia N9 Hands-on Preview

The Nokia N9 is great to look at, packed with powerful features, and has garnered little but positive press, not just from Nokia-focused sites like ourselves but from the wider mobile press in general.

That said, it remains to be seen whether it'll be topping the Nokia N Series range a year from now, and still attracting the plaudits long after the launch excitement has died down. For that's what the Nokia N8 has managed: it's a handset that has kept its appeal superbly well, and we still talk about its classy and attractive design, class-leading camera and superb screen today.

But enough of that, and down to business: how do the Nokia N8 and Nokia N9 actually compare? We'll leave aside the fact that one runs Symbian and the other MeeGo, and focus on more direct physical comparisons and check out how they compare feature-wise.

Size
With a 3.9-inch display, the Nokia N9 isn't quite in “superphone” territory, but it dwarfs the comparatively petite 3.5-inch Nokia N8 in terms of screen size, and with more screen real estate comes a higher resolution too – 480 x 854, versus the Nokia N8's still impressive 360 x 640. In terms of overall size, though, the fact that the Nokia N9 does away with physical buttons on the front altogether helps its overall dimensions to come in surprisingly close to its smaller-screened N Series stablemate:
Nokia N8: 113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9mm
Nokia N9: 116.5 x 61.2 x 12.1mm

Hardware
As you'd expect from a newer generation of smartphone, the Nokia N9 is a clear winner when it comes to core hardware considerations such as the mobile processor beating away inside. It boasts an 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 chip, versus the Nokia N8's 680MHz ARM 11 processor. Other interesting advances worth mentioning are the presence of NFC support and, on the audio front, Dolby Digital Plus decoding and Dolby headphone post-processing technology on the Nokia N9, a world first for smartphones. When it comes to the camera, however, the 12-megapixel Nokia N8 still has the edge, though with the Nokia N9, deliberate sacrifices were made in order to dramatically reduce the overall size of the camera components.

Secrets of the Nokia N9 Camera Revealed

Other considerations
As we've already mentioned, the fact that the Nokia N9 uses a different generation of operating system has led to other differences in how these two high-powered smartphones operate. The most significant is undoubtedly the Nokia N9's complete lack of physical buttons. This delivers a dramatically different look, and significant bragging rights for Nokia too! But it also means a complete reliance on touch on the Nokia N9 – and more specifically swipe, an approach it's safe to say we can expect from other Nokia handsets in the future.

These aren't the only differences between these two attractive Nokia powerhouses, of course, but they're the most notable. Looking forward to the Nokia N9's arrival later this year, what is the difference over the Nokia N8 you're most interested in seeing in the flesh? Give us your thoughts in the Comments.