There were N900s given/sold to developers "through abnormal channels" too. A device does not have to be a taboo device that will never land in the hands of users in order to be distributed like this, to developers first, but eventually to consumers.

Why wouldn't Nokia sell the devices? Are they not good enough for consumers? Because of what, "flimsy hinges"? And developers, not being human beings (to quote the old Ubuntu lemma), wouldn't care about that, and would think it's OK to use a crappy phone?

I don't doubt there may be developer programs, "abnormal channels", etc. But the idea of the exclusivity, that the device will _never_ be sold as a regular device simply does not make sense to me. I believe you people ate jumping to conclusions from incomplete information. It's a very colorful story, devices that were going to the garbage bin being instead scrapped and given to our valiant developers... I would certainly love one of these, along with the story of saving a rare device (I am myself a known techno beggar, having participated of the Nokia Push while never being able to afford a N900). But a teacher of melancholy once taught me that life is very rarely that exciting and interesting.

Nokia can manufacture these babies by the flip of a switch. They open up the N9 faucet, and there you go, macbooquesque 1GHz mobile computers to all around the world. Not just 97k in a warehouse behind Eldar Murtain's momma house in Russia.

I will buy this story if you guys provide me one solid reason for Nokia to act like this. If the device has a _good quality_, it can be perfectly sold regularly. If it has a _bad quality_, Nokia should in fact bury these little monsters deep, and never let them see the light of day, not even as scrapped gadgets handed to developers. They have a reputation to keep, and all that sort of marketing stuff...

Just my 97,000 cents. I will eat the sapphire of a Nokia Oro if turns out my predictions, based on zero facts and just my own uncommon sense (or Next Sense) are wrong.