Thanks for starting this thread! I was just thinking of doing it, but titling it "I LOVE SENDING MMS ON MY N900!" to make a point.

I first heard about this phone through another device I own named the Neo FreeRunner.

The Neo was supposed to be what the N900 has become, a mainly opensource device that one could use as a phone and/or as a MID. It looked promising, and was sold with grand statements on what it was able to do that later turned out to be false. It had major hardware bugs, they changed the OS weeks before launch in major ways, and it never worked reliably as anything. It had recamping issues, volume issues, feedback issues, self-generated buzz... The GPS wouldn't work if you had a uSD card installed, wifi could connect once, but then the device had to be rebooted to reset the chip. Really, it was that bad. The company not only didn't update the device, but went out of business.

When I saw the N900, I was wary, having just been bitten, but I knew the Nokia name, and did major research before ordering. I downloaded the build tools, played with them a bit, and even came here, to find a very supporting community (well, minus some people upset about all the new development going into the N900...) Had I come today, I'm not sure I'd have jumped for it, given the high number of negative nancies running amuck.

I got my N900 the day before Thanksgiving, and have really enjoyed every second of it since. I was a little disappointed by a few items, like the map software and the lack of major IM client support, but I knew that was fixable. I figured, it's Linux, running X. How hard can it be to cross port pidgen? I hit the garage site, and the project was already there. I helped by testing it. The same was true of MMS, which I didn't even discover until a friend asked about one he sent (I don't get them often). I went to see what was happening, and already there was a prototype ready to test. Even mapping has come along with Maemo Mapper, and several other tools.

And, it works like a phone too! The wifi just works, no hassle, just click and go. The bluetooth worked great, minus some minor issues around keyboards and mice, which was easily fixed once someone figured out how to register them as input devices with the window manager via gconf and xset. Every time I had a problem, I'd find people here with a similar issue, and either they had a solution already, or were working on a fix. And even when the fix was elusive, or still kind of rough, there was this feeling of "Isn't it great we have the option of trying to fix this ourselves, vs waiting and hoping Nokia/Maemo gets to it."

Overall, I've been loving this device (phone, MID, whatever you want to call it). It's not for everyone, granted. But for those with an inclination to tinker, that want a stable base that does what it's advertised to do, this is the one. I for one am looking forward to a real 1.2 being put out so I have new things to play with, and can finally decide which of 3 or 4 apps I've been debating starting gets to go next. (Eg, if maps aren't improved, I may work on that. If it is, maybe an e-mail client... etc)