I agree with Crashdamage's astute assessment of the US market.

One possibility is that T-Mobile will introduce the N900 without much subsidy. They've done that with the HTC Touch Pro 2, which has a suggested retail of $550 but sells for $350 with a two-year commitment at T-Mob. That means a $450 N900. Only the fans will buy it at that price.

As for T-Mob's 3G network, they are rolling it out at a furious pace, but neither it nor its retailers are ready for prime time. My town got 3G early last month, but the rollout is incomplete. Half of the suburbs still don't have 3G and there's no firm ETA. I have to assume that's typical of T-Mob, so 3G will be hit-and-miss for at least the rest of the year, if not another 6 months.

Here's an interesting sidelight on the MyTouch. When 3G hit, I stopped by a T-Mob company store and asked about the MyTouch 3G. The salesman was very reluctant to sell it, and wanted to push me into a Blackberry. He was obviously a very experienced T-Mob salesman, knew the phones and plans well. My guess is that people bought the MyTouch expecting an iPhone experience and were dissapointed. The T-Mobile forums have 24,000 posts (10X any other topic) on MyTouch:

http://forums.t-mobile.com/tmbl/

T-Mob clearly needs devices for their shiny new 3G network. If MyTouch is a disappointment, maybe T-Mob will roll out the N900 with a decent subsidy. But they could just as well wait for the next Android device or get the Blackberry Bold, both of which have far more brand recognition than Nokia in the US.