I still don't understand why people object to devices simply having cellular telephony as an option. No one minded Wimax as an option, why is 3.5G as an option any different?

Some people seem to think telephony means control by network operators but that just isn't the case. I have spent the past few years buying and reviewing cellular devices, and I have never bought ANYTHING from a network operator. I have never signed up to a contract, and no network operator has any control over me or my devices. My relationship to my phone network is identical to my relationship to my ISP: they supply a connection, they don't supply anything else.

If you buy an unbranded phone, no network operator can touch you. And all Nokia devices (branded or unbranded) will work without a SIM card, so they can be used as pure non-cellular devices if you prefer.

Practically all Nokia devices are available as unbranded unlocked devices straight from electronics retailers with no network operator involvement at all, in fact the unbranded versions come out a lot sooner. Even if you're in America, where unbranded phones have traditionally been a rarity, Amazon US sell them, Dell US sell them, Nokia US's website sells them, and here in Europe practically every retailer sells unbranded phones.

Even if the new Maemo devices had telephony, you could just ignore it, it wouldn't make any practical difference. Even the price wouldn't be that different, the 5800 for example has multifrequency 3.5G telephony but launched for substantially less than the N810 or N800 did.

At most the inclusion of telephony would probably only add maybe 5-10% to the total price, but even that might disappear if the increased sales reduce production costs. Large batches of telephony devices may be cheaper to make than small batches of non-telephony devices (and of course increased userbase would virtually guarantee a much greater supply of software and services for Maemo devices).

I can see lots of upsides to offering telephony as an option, I can't see any downsides at all.