...for folks upset with Maemo phones.

That's a big difference. What geneven purchased first was an N800. Not a phone, savvy?

I was in the same maemo freshman class as geneven. I bought the N800 on the first day for the same reasons and also with very little research.

I bought it because it was Linux but not because that was an OS I was familiar with. I bought it because Linux was an OS that I wanted to learn but didn't have the time or resources available to dedicate a desktop machine to a Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

At that time I had already been in the handheld device world for 3 years and didn't like the way WinMo was going. The cost of upgrading hardware as well as development time and licensing of proprietary applications used by the service industry was skyrocketing. This seem to be simply because M/S took a whole 'nother direction every 18 months with additional hardware required with each step and no support for legacy devices.
There are still plenty of service companies out there running WinMo 2002 on b/w handheld devices because of this.

In a lot of ways Linux was a viable answer to this Windows Mobile mess.

I used my new N800 and the many members of this forum and community to learn as much as I could. And just like my classmates gerbick and geneven, I am also very grateful to this organization for the experience.

Research wasn't required just desire.

This whole "What did you expect?" vs. "For the money I paid I can't believe it doesn't have the same user experience as my girl friends Jesus phone" crapolla didn't come about until Maemo was also a phone.

If you were going to use anything as your primary means of communicating with the world and what you do depends on your ability to communicate in a timely fashion, you best do some research before choosing your device.

I have had my N900 since the first day it was available to me and I use it everyday. I rely on it for many things and have a consistent 3G connection where I live, work, and play. In time and energy, my N900 has paid for itself many times over. I am very happy with it.

However, I have never, ever used it as a phone. I don't even know if the the phone side worked when I bought it.