I think that's too... subjective, I guess? How good of a deal it is depends entirely on what you want out of a device.

I've played with iPhones, seen their messaging system (the little push message pop-ups), their control-depriving though shiny UI/UX, and, well, I couldn't live with it. Maybe back when the iPhone first came out, when nothing else on the market was vaguely similar.

But I would personally never trade the capabilities of the N900 for all the bug-less-ness of the iPhones (which aren't exactly bugless, we just only hear about our bugs here, and unfortunately our fixes are, well, not exactly quick to reach us down here in the end-user space).

Frak, even without the root-access-with-one-download, the ability to make and reflash kernel images on-board the device, the easy-as-hell SSH, the ability to actually manually monitor and control so much of the device's workings if you know what you're doing, and as of late the packet injection and all the fun that comes with it, know what I feel completely impotent without when messing with any other phone? Status Menu. That thing is a godsend. It's on EVERY screen, just about, unless a program is coded against it specifically, and with the ability to open it in portrait mode hacked on, it's even better. Of course, leave it stock and it sucks. But put in Qwerty's non-disappearing FM Transmitter applet, the Brightness Applet, and a couple of the other stock and custom things, and it's a godsend in so many use cases. I move from a dim environment to a bright one? It takes me like a second to change brightness. If I had an iPhone, I'd have to back out of my application, navigate through a few screens just to get to the settings, and back out. The best thing I've seen Android have is the desktop widget that lets you change brightness settings (still have to back out of the app). I've also never seen nearly as responsive of brightness auto-adjustment in the screen (to be clear, my recent exposure to other gadgets is two different iPhone 4s, an iPhone 3GS, and a Droid - the original one, not the Droid 2/Droid X/Droid whatever).

And I'm sure someone could hack the Android OS well enough to replicate that functionality, but you'd have to flash an entirely new image over the firmware to make it work, I think. iPhone you'd be lucky if you could get it after jailbreaking it.

Even without the insane versatility, even without all the things you can either do, or make it do if you're willing to put forth the effort, there's all these little things that are made possible by the N900's OS and versatility that, well, if they matter to you, if they make your phone experience more enjoyable, you CAN'T get them on anything else. No other phone will let you, let alone without fighting on you.

Nokia's policy in regards to their closed blobs, which they won't open and won't bug-fix faster/better is a major pain in the ***, yes. But we only notice and have the liberty to have problems with them because the rest of the OS is open and transparent enough that things that deep down are hindrances.

And I don't think, if you were someone who'd like the N900 initially, you'd have a problem with not getting resale value out of it. I know I certainly never intend to resell.

So I disagree with the notion that it's objectively a better deal. For the things I want out of my phone/device, the iPhone is the absolute worst thing I could buy. At that point, I'd be happier pulling out my pre-N900 phone - the Samsung Highlight. I don't care for the app selection, and if I want to consume media on it, at least it takes Micro SD cards, and is happy to play files from it.

The iPhone is good at what it does. It does, well, very little, and god forbid you want to make it do something that an existing app doesn't do. Like the Super Bowl here in the US, which people who don't care much about football watch for the commercials, you put up with the shortcomings of the phone because of the app selection if that's what matters for you. But if there's nothing you need out of the commercials that you can get elsewhere, and you simply don't at all like football, it's not going to be worth it - especially not when it costs you upwards of 500$, with which you lock yourself into just watching the superbowl with the occasional commercial to make the experience feel worthwhile for two years.

If that's all you want from a phone, and you don't feel the inhibiting grip of the OS around your actions, you'll be happy, and the iPhone's a better deal for you. But there's plenty of people for whom it's definitely not a better deal. The clueless ones are the ones who don't know what they want, or don't know what device can best fill it.... so, most people.