Not really, cellular components are cheap and small and getting cheaper and smaller all the time. The extra cost of 3G would probably be something like 10% of the total price or less.

A basic 3G phone (including the screen, keypad, battery, processor, earpiece, casing etc) retails for about 50 euros unlocked, the N900 retails for about 500 euros unlocked. The cost of making the 3G components cannot be a significant factor in the price.

Things like the the costs of the processors would be much more significant, but I haven't heard anyone here calling for a device with a slower processor or a non-GPU version.

As for design choices... well, there's not a huge difference between the N900 and N810 except their physical size. There's not a huge design difference between the iPhone and the iPod Touch either.

This anti-cellular movement is really getting me down. I could just as easily complain about there being an infrared port which most people never use, and I hardly ever use Bluetooth or the memory card slot either. But I'm not going to complain because I recognise that these are important to some people and they don't add any significant problems for me. And the more people that buy this device, the more software support I will receive too.

The problems that people cite with cellular are nothing to do with the technology but entirely to do with the business practices of cellular providers. And that's a regulatory problem, not a technological one.

American phone providers (both cellular and landline) do things that would be totally illegal in many countries. Until that kind of bad behaviour is stopped, they will continue to milk their customers regardless of the technology used.