Well yodawg, I must say I truly doubt whether your "friend" asks you this or you are just trying to ask your own questions through a alter-ego, but whatever.

The question it comes down to is: what matters to you, showing off (e.g. dick-measuring) or functionality? If you think the show-off factor is the most important feature of the phone, I guess the N900 won't work for you. Like Cole said, the hardware for the N900 was decided August 2009, which makes the phone a year old so it won't compete to any devices recently released.

However, the phone is running a variation of Linux and can do almost everything. Bluetooth mouse support has been added recently, and I have my hopes up for keyboard support or USB host support coming soon. If that'll come, the N900 will offer true computer functionality when linked to an external display (e.g. TV). Try that with iPhone OS or Android. When not linked to a TV or mouse/keyboard, it works like an excellent phone, including built-in Skype functionality.

Regarding speed: overclocking the device is a nice way to bring it up to par with devices that have recently been released --- 8 to 9 months later!! Battery-life issues exist with every modern phone and the N900 is no exception. Still, I can use my N900 for 2 days easily, with my GPRS connection turned on almost constantly, regularly listening to music, checking my e-mail every half our and checking my Facebook every now and then.