thanks to everyone who replied.

i agree, the best option would be to take a wait and see approach and see what the next gen maemo 6 or winmo devices bring!

unfortunately, the tech itch in me wants a new device to get my hands on. the fact that there is just over a us$100 price difference between a top of the end symbian and the n900 screams 'bargain' to me. that plus the fact that i'll probably be the 0.01% of populace that use a n900 (as opposed to the me-too iphone or the increasingly common nexus one.)

i'm thinking i can get the n900, bask in all its geek wizardry, and sell it off to fund my next maemo 6 device when it eventually comes out.

the rational side of me still says nexus one, because it's newly released, and google will damn near support it for a good 2 years.