Fry's is coming in a hair high with that price (esp. when you can get a brand-new one on Amazon for around $500).

Trying to explain to people why get an N9 when you can get a newer/faster/whatever Smartphone for $99 on contract is a difficult point b/c it often comes down to ease-of-use and taste, like trying to explain why you drive a VW or a BMW or a Mercedes or a Prius when you can get the absolute cheapest possible car BRAND NEW for much less (Honda Civic, Hyundai, Scion, Chevy) that will still get you from point A to point B. Why spend more on a fancy car? Why spend more on an older phone? For that matter, why keep using an older phone/car when there are newer/cheaper models available?

I've used the HTC Amaze and the Sensation (which I still own and need to ebay) and for me, there is no ease of use, fluidity, the cameras suck - the colors are washed out, battery life was atrocious and the OS is a hack to use. The call quality was good but often the phone would freeze and I couldn't pick up calls until I restarted the phone. Not good. That was my user experience.

I really like iOS and have an iPhone 2G and a 3GS. They're beautiful phones, but no 3G on T-Mobile, a plan which costs me $115/month for unlimited data on three lines (with 2GB high speed downloads on 1 phone and maybe 800MB high speed data on the other two lines) with 1000 minutes/month on the lines with unlimited texting. For under $40/month per line I'm glad to have a phone that works very well, allows me to have a 3G Wifi hotspot which I use when I'm out and about. The N9 fits my needs, takes great pictures quickly, the video quality is outstanding, the phone almost never crashes (except for when overclocking) and the call quality is excellent unlike the iPhones that always had questionable call quality and people often complained they couldn't hear me. The iPhone "did it all"... except made great phone call quality which is a big deal for a phone.

As has been discussed ad nauseam, it's a shame Elop has EOLd the N9 and MeeGo (aka Mego). Sadly, he has likely guessed my upgrade path - some Windows OS phone (WinPhone 8+) - the OS is fluid and I got Lumia 710s for my family members who love those phones. More storage and/or mem card slot, WiFi Hotspot, FFC and a few other features would make those phones dynamos which we'll probably see in the next OS release. Still, the WinPhone store is rotten and it's nice to have an open OS that exists on MeeGo.

In the end, it's a tool to keep my life more organized so to each his own.