I am temporarily using a T-mobile Dash which is bad for many reasons. But besides WM 6.1, it is absolutely useless outdoors.
The screen is unreadable in the sun. The question to those of you who have N900s, how are they in sunlight? Can you still read the screen?

Thank you

You haven't heard Nokia's grand plan to destroy the sun yet, have you?

I am impresed by the readability of the screen in sunlight. No concerns there.

The N900 uses a nice transflective screen, so it is readable in direct sunlight.

I hope it's better than the N810, which seemed to me almost as bad as the N800 when I was trying to use it in the car yesterday. I found it not usable.

I would be totally unhesitant to take my Kindle to read on the beach, but I don't think I'd even bother to take my N810 there on a sunny day unless I was sure I'd have some decent shade. We have quite a lot of sun here in Southern California.

The N8X0 tablets were not designed to be used in direct sunlight. The N900 on the other hand being also a phone had to support usablility in sunlight. And the clarity/brightness is comparable to any other high-end phone.

Thank you everyone for the feedback.

I'd say it depends on your definition of usable. The sunny days are gone here so I can't really compare to the N810. Certainly no TFT gets quality-wise anywhere near e-ink in direct sunlight, but if you hold it at the correct angle, transflective *is* readable (you lose most colors, though - applications that rely on them heavily might be difficult to use).

Yup, Nokia seem to consistently have the most usable screens in the sun. I'm forced to use HTC and Samsung phones for work. Even in old blighty I find myself often unable to read anything on the screen wheras the Nokia's is washed out but usable.