Nokia N9 not coming to the UK?

The Nokia N9 may not be coming to the UK. The first -- and only -- phone to use doomed operating system MeeGo is heading to Europe but won't cross the channel to Blighty, if one early indication is to be believed.

The evidence: the Nokia website now includes a page where you can sign up for email updates when the N9 is available. Great, we thought, scrolling down the list of countries. Switzerland German, Switzerland French, UAE Arabic, UAE English, Vietnam -- hang on, where's the United Kingdom option? What about England's green and pleasant land? Quick check under G for Great Britain in case Nokia had come over all patriotic, but no -- no dark satanic mills looming between Greece and Hong Kong (English).

Not definitive evidence, certainly, but the N9's tenuous existence as the only MeeGo phone means it isn't positive. The US is also missing from the list, although Australia, New Zealand, and assorted countries in Scandinavia and continental Europe are included.

We contacted Nokia, who told us that nothing had been confirmed, so the fact the UK is missing from the email sign-up sheet shouldn't be taken to mean that the N9 won't ever come to these shores. No news is good news at this stage, and Nokia's promised we'll be the first to know if things change.

Let's take a look at the evidence: the N9 was launched in Singapore, which isn't a good sign. But Nokia wonks made the pilgrimage to CNET UK Towers specially for us to play with the N9 -- and that's a very good sign indeed.

Nokia's visit meant we didn't have to move our corpulent gadget-loving behinds from the cocoon of broken laptops and discarded Jelly Baby wrappers we've constructed around the Crave newsdesk to capture a gallery of hands-on photos, and we were pretty impressed with the N9. It's a shame it's the only phone of its kind, and it would be a shame if we didn't get to enjoy it here.

Ultimately it comes down to the mobile networks, which may not be too keen to carry a phone that's already been pronounced dead-on-arrival. It's likely they're more inclined to hold out for Nokia's Windows Phone devices, the first prototype of which, Sea Ray, looks very much like an N9 but with Microsoft software inside.

Would you buy an N9 knowing MeeGo won't be supported in future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page, and keep it Crave as we hear more from Nokia. Here's our hands-on video with the N9: