Mind you. I've used the 770, I still use the N810 on my trips or in my house almost daily. And have been following the jump to Maemo 5 with bated breath.

And yes, before it goes any further... I'm one of those "dreaded" Apple iPhone users. With that said, I'm one of those iPhone owners that would rather not be one, but at the time (and currently) it did what I needed in terms of social apps, location aware apps and instant messaging (for the most part).

I'm an Adobe Flash developer, so that's a strike against it already. I'm not tied to iTunes like I once was - in fact I tend to use my 120gb Zune now mostly for music - there's all of 4 songs on my iPhone. I do enjoy a quick/easy game, in fact I've been tapped on the shoulder to evaluate and get better versed with Unity3D. Which... I totally enjoy. But that's not on the N900 at all.

I will not evangelize the iPhone. I've lived through each and every growing pain that it could toss out at an user: random reboots, faulty updates, dropped phone calls, programs causing problems once installed, bad battery life in under a year, weird camera issues, multiple replacements (I'm up to 7 replaced iPhones in two years... no joke) and one faulty headphone jack that came out with just casual use.

Therefore I know that gadgets like the iPhone/N900 are not perfect. That's what warranties are for. And I'm not particularly rough with my gadgets either.

But with the talk of random reboots, faulty connectors, lack of applications (at the moment) and other issues that have been brought up here at TMO quite a bit, I'm starting to feel like I would be going backwards to the early days of the Apple iPhone and then re-suffering through to the days that I'd actually enjoy it. I actually have grown to "like" (read: I don't want to dropkick the damn thing on a daily basis) the iPhone, but I know there are better. I need true multi-tasking.

I need a phone that supports: Skype, VoIP, GTalk, Yahoo, MSN, AIM... and does so while I'm doing something else. Sure, I can actually be on the phone, send an MMS, then switch back to Fring without an issue and still be talking on the phone. I do that regularly - it's rather limited, but it is indeed some form of multi-tasking albeit not true multi-tasking. I want the real thing.

I do like an occasional game - I used to work for Sega. So games are still a part of my life. And I'm not too big on emulators, but I can appreciate them.

I know the N900 is the start... better yet, I know it's the 4th out of 5th step. But as it stands, I'm on the cusp of my contract with AT&T. And I'm seriously looking to replace the iPhone with something that I won't regret. Or better yet, with something that if I had to wait for it to grow up a bit, it won't be as painful as the iPhone.

Do any of you have any compelling arguments? I hate to be a bother, I'm honestly requesting the kind of comments that I see Texrat and Zerojay come out with. Those guys, despite we (them and I) being on different sides of the fence, I can still respect what they say and how they think.

Thanks in advance. This is a rather selfish thread, but I think that it would help others that need to hear true commentary on how this phone is - pros and cons. I don't expect perfection. I just am in the unique position to really not want to be in the same position I was during the pre-OS 2.x days. 3.x hasn't been all that bad to me.

MMS, location-aware apps that help me locate the cheapest gas (I use Where), some games (The Deep Pinball is my "crack" as is Konami's Pro Baseball) and the ability to connect to Facebook, Fring/Skype, the weather in a few locations, and I would call that a solid start.