In response to the original post by Outdoors, I'll put my own opinion of the N900 here, hopefully a balanced view that others can use to decide whether to get a N900.

I agree with Rm42 that the N900 is the most powerful device out there, not necessarily because of hardware (which will become obsolete in the blink of an eye) but because of the versatility in the hands of a programmer. I myself am not much of a programmer (left the engineering profession many years ago) but still write shell and Python scripts; and that is sufficient to wield the power of the N900

Smoku mentioned a number of devices which s/he felt was more powerful than the N900: "Acer Liquid Stream, Samsung Epic 4G, Samsung Vibrant, Samsung Captivate, Motorola Droid 2, Motorola Droid X, HTC Evo 4G, Dell Streak, Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Incredible, HTC Desire, HTC Nexus One, Sony-Ericsson Xperia X10" I am not familiar with any of these devices, but I doubt if you can gain root on these devices and fiddle with the OS. Here are things that I can do on the N900; can you do this with any other geekphone? If so, I'd be interested:

1. - view and edit text files, in their original format. This is my main use for the N900: I look up medical information contained in text files that will replace cumbersome medical textbooks. I run vim and search for keywords in text files over 10 MB in size (yes, 10 MB of text; we're not talking a 10 MB PDF or a 10 MB JPEG file which contains much less useful info). Previously I used the Palm Treo/HandEra/TRGpro which could edit text files but you'd have to convert it to/from the Palm text format, which is still not too bad...
2. - replace the user interface with a modified version (modified Linux kernel, modified Hildon interface). Bonus points if the modified version is open source so you can trust/modify it.
3. - use Python with libraries that let you hook up to the DBUS interface so you can control other applications. (Other systems might require use of C/C++, which might be okay for others but I find Python much easier to learn and keep up with.)
4. - backup to my home server via online Internet access, so I can do a backup while I'm taking a walk in the park, and feel secure knowing that I have a backup copy of the priceless video I just took of my kid.
5. - do shell scripting. Bonus points if it's (pretty much) the same Linux shell that you're already used to using on your desktop.

These are things that are unique to the N900 that made me buy my third one even after I found the first two defective. On the other hand, I would agree that if programmability is not something of which you can take advantage, you might not get enough benefit to justify the cost (dollars, time, effort) of getting and maintaining a N900. You might be more interested in an Android phone, iPhone, or the latest Palm thing (I know Pixi displaced Pre, but is there something newer now)? All of these involve software that other people have written for you, but I want to be able to write my own. Believe it or not, I spend most of my time on the command-line interface, and most of that is in vim editing text files.

Hope that helps.