I've been buying expensive, niche devices from Nokia for some years now - 770, N800 and now N900 (truth be told, the 7710 with its Series 90 system turned out to be a one-of-a-kind niche too).

I trust Nokia - to follow through on not selling the N9 directly here in the US, to not build new devices based on the pent up interest in the N9, to put all of its serious smartphone eggs in the WP7 basket - come what may.

I've tried to replace the N900 - and couldn't. Mine's still working well, since December 2009. But it's a little long in the tooth these days. The N9 is very attractive.

Dead (or dying) on arrival - probably. But, out-of-the-box it will do a lot of what the N900 does (for me - maybe not for others) - and there will be applications to do many of the things I need. As there were/are for the N900. So, I am likely to spend yet more money on a Nokia niche device.

That there be a community around the N9, as there was for Internet Tablets and the N900, would be good. Is it the Meego community? I'm not certain. The N9 doesn't really run Meego - but there seems to be sufficient intersect that a community could span what the N9 is and what Meego could become.

A wait and see exercise, I suppose.