Pictures have surfaced in a Chinese forum that reportedly show a prototype Nokia handset. Rumored to be the N9, the device closely resembles the N8 but has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The most compelling aspect of this leak is that the device appears to be running the MeeGo Linux platform rather than Symbian.

Nokia recently confirmed that its first MeeGo-based product will launch this year, but the company hasn't officially revealed any specific details about the form factor or other characteristics. It's possible that the leaked photos of the alleged N9 handset offer the first real look at Nokia's upcoming MeeGo product.

MeeGo is a Linux-based operating system that emerged earlier this year when Nokia and Intel brought together their respective mobile Linux platforms. MeeGo is more closely aligned with the upstream Linux stack than other mobile Linux platforms and offers a more inclusive and transparent development process. The MeeGo handset user experience is still at a relatively early stage of development, however.

The device in the leaked photos certainly looks like a Nokia product, but its authenticity has not been confirmed yet. The device has a Nokia logo and photos of the inside show Nokia stickers. Unlike the N900 and other recent Nokia handsets with keyboards, the device in the photo has the space bar in the correct location. This is either a very welcome improvement to Nokia's phone design, or evidence that possibly contradicts the leak's authenticity.

The product number shown in the photos has appeared in some interesting places on the Internet. For example, a software engineer in Nokia's device division cited the device's product number in a bug report that he posted in the public bug tracker for Qt—Nokia's open source application development framework. The bug report describes a minor issue with the QCompass class, which is part of the Qt Mobility framework.

Regardless of authenticity, it's an impressive-looking device that seems to build on some excellent industrial design ideas. The combination of Qt and MeeGo has a ton of potential, but it's unclear still if Nokia can deliver a user experience that is truly competitive with Android and the iPhone.