Thought I'd pipe in here, since 2.5G browsing is my only option. I canceled my T-mobile contract because of no cell service around my house, and ended up going into AT&T an buying an iphone. I figured if I keep the n900 with at&t, selling the iphone would nicely offset the cost, and if I don't, an iphone is really the only alternative, since I don't get Verizon coverage either.

Side by side test with n900 on 2.5G and iphone 3GS on 3G, there really wasn't a big difference in loading mobile web pages, like m.espn.com, m.cnn.com, etc... It would take on average only 1-5 seconds longer to completely load. I could completely live with it on those types of pages.

However, I couldn't stream anything without hiccups on the n900, including lower quality audio and video streams, they always stuttered throughout, which is kind of what I expected. The coverage area i'm in is supposed to be solid, but I'm guessing results will vary. And regular web pages, espn.com, slashdot.org, could take over 1 minute to completely load depending on how much stuff was on there. I'm hoping this could be lessed by installing ad block, etc... to block flash advertising.

Installing apps was fine, no issues.

So all in all, it's really not too bad.