I tried Android. Although I was considering it if Meego is not great, I am not so keen on it now. Maemo5 is miles ahead. I have not tried Meego, but sadly I think that it will be more limited than Maemo. More like Android, if you know what I mean. However this is my opinion of course, and Meego might be very appealing after all.

With that said, I don't think there is another mobile on the market that handles videos as great as the N900. It accepts many formats, however nothing over 800x480 in resolution. Standard 699MB-1.5GB avi dvdrips are a piece of cake for the N900. I have never had problems with them. Using Mplayer with sib as frontend and the standard media player I have played some anime in .mkv format with dual audio (eng and jap) and subtitles, and sib plays them well and can switch between audoo streams. However I did have some problems sometimes with .mkv. Usually in seasons. They would be encoded differently from one season to another. So before going out, make sure it plays at least one episode, so you will be able to play them well. But it's still miles ahead the competition when it comes to video playing. And the screen and sound are beautiful too. So if video is important to you, the N900 is the only choice. Audio playing is another thing though..I felt quite disappointed with the standard media app. It looks good, sorts well and plays well. But playlist management is a joke and no equalizer (there is a plugin..but it is CPU intensive). There are alternatives like Tplayer and Symphonie that have an equalizer, You can also set up a server called Knots2 and stream media to your N900 from your PC.

Browsing is great too on the device. The browser is quite fast, renders well and I find the gestures to be very comfortable, like 'hover mode' (to select text) and swirl to zoom. But Android is quite good too. So you're good either way.

Memory is great on the N900. The 32GB onboard is quite fast (so not the cheap slow memory manufactorers sometimes put in the phone). For this Nokia must be commended. There is also support for a microsd with the capacity of 1-32GB, which brings the maximum total to 64GB. The camera is quite good. If your memory card is not fragmented, video recording should be smooth. And with apps such as fcam, it is much more pleasant and exciting to use than on Android. There are also other hardware goodies like the FM receiver and transmitter, IR transmitter etc.

Resistive vs capacitive. It is up to you. I prefer resistive for it's precision. The N900's screen will be less sensitive than a capacitive screen of course. But it is hardly noticeable believe me. Lacking multi touch is a bit of a downside though. But you can use gloves with it and a stylus. This makes drawing much fun especially with apps like myPaint. And you can use the browser without zooming.

UI in my opinion is much better on the N900. Android just doesn't feel...natural for me. I can't really explain it. A very good plus for Android is portrait mode. It is practically non existant for the N900.

Applications are quite good for the N900. You won't feel the need for them in my opinion. The developers here and those porting apps have really brought many good apps here. Games and ports are quite good too, but Android has much better games. There's no question there. However many Android games don't use the hardware keyboard on the Droid, so it kind of ruins the feel. Emulators are good on both platforms, however the N900 takes the crown by a little bit, and by using a sixpair controller or buying a gamegripper, it feels great on the N900. Most Android don't have a keyboard.

The N900 currently can have multiple OSes installed. Android, Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Meego are the ones that come to mind. Not to mention Easy Debian, which is just wonderful.

The hardware keyboard is much more comfortable than that of the Droid in my opinion. I am posting from the N900 right now (my fingers are getting tired ). GPS lock is good on both devices. Both have good GPS software too. OVI maps suck, but Sygic on the N900 is good. I didn't like Google maps because data plans are expensive. The N900 doesn't have a digital compass though.

Finally I would suggest that you don't buy the N900 but wait for Meego to see if you like it more, since Maemo5 is practically discontinued. But I do see a future for the N900, at least for a few more months.

Android vs N900? Android is more limited, stable, has more games, more mainstream and supports many modifications. Maemo5 has more freedom, bugs, better community, less games (although QT might bring more), can be completely modified and is almost pure linux. In Maemo5, some things won't just work. You have to search to solve a problem. I like modifying and doing just that. So I fell in love with the N900 and didn't like Android much. However many users who left here were disappointed by the N900 and felt much better with Android. It is purely down to preference. The thing is that some things (only a few in my experience) the N900 will not just work. To use it fully, you must know how to treat it. My personal N900 is very fast and stable and a pleasure to use. That's all I can say.

Goodluck with your choice.

**Edit** Some important points I forgot to mention. Multitasking is available to both platforms. However I feel the way that Maemo handles multiple tasks is better. The dashboard is a perfect way to implement multitasking and the processes are handled better too.

Also the Android sport 1GHz processors and more RAM. You can argue that the N900 can be OC to 1.15GHz and that it is 768MB virtial Ram, but the Android devices still get an edge here.

I also installed many apps (200+) for my N900. So I am not a careful user. I modified it so that I have a 6GB /home/ partition.

P.S. Many people take this for granted..but you'll miss it once you don't have it. The way that Skype (IM, VOIP and Video), GTalk, Yahoo and other IM accounts integrate perfectly with the OS. It's amazing, and one of the most things I missed (and one of the most things I actually took for granted).