And within not that long you're tinkering away and learing loads about Linux, from the kernel upwards. Can you even run perl or a webserver on another device sold as a phone? And you can write and run <language> programmes on device. It's great.

Concept: "3.5inch 3G tablet computer," and all that that brings to mind.
Caveat: released 2.5yrs ago so some modern harware is better or faster. Therefore, in some cases software demands are greater than its embedded capabilites (flash and embedded videos are a sore point).