When I bought the first Android G1 phone, things were much worse than this. While Nokia fans might have issues when coming from Symbian and I agree that's a hard act to follow - if you compare with other new phone/platform combinations, it's a much fairer comparison.

Every manufacturer leaves older hardware and their owners behind. Try talking to owners of palm tops like Mobile Pro and Jornada after cheap netbooks hit the market - the few dozen that were left, anyway. Phones are a little different, I guess, because if it still can make a phone call, someone can still get use out of it.

Keep in mind that people still on a 2 year contract with the G1 are being left behind by Google/Android. The Office applications were months after the phone release, and expensive. The 3rd party games and apps didn't start coming until iPhone devs started porting and the original Market had very little of any value in it for quite a while. And Android couldn't even save web pages or run more than limited javascript in the beginning. No wiki on a stick for Android 1.5. (Is it true that the iPhone still can't?)

To be honest, a decent web broswer and gnumeric and abiword still beats most of the available Android office stuff. It's slim pickings there on both platforms compared to all the entertainment and social networking apps. That doesn't make the N900 an inferior phone. It means that more people will pay for a twitter or facebook app or one with pictures of scantily clad college co-eds. I don't miss wading through those. :-)

I thought the article was very thoughtful and clarified the best features of the N900.

Terry (unfortunately iPhone still has the best flying related apps)