inspired by Quim's message in this bug, and then when writing this, I saw this thread, I thought I would ask the question.

If the community has a differnt opinion from the Nokia Maemo team, then they need to learn that their assumption was wrong as soon as possible so they can take care of it in things like Test Suites and development practices.

Well, first I'll be using it without a SIM from I receive it (today, I think) until the SIM is activated, the 16th.

And then I will use it without cellular data whenever I am out of my country, since data roaming is horrendously expensive. Which means that basically every time I need GPS, I will be offline.

Finally, whenever I get my next phone, I assume I will still be holding on to the N900, like I will be holding on to the N810 now. So, in the future, no more SIM.

So, most of the time I'll be with a SIM/cellular data but not in three phases:
- when I first get the device and play with it to figure out if GPS is usable,
- when I need GPS,
- when I've retired it as a phone and GPS is one of the main features that is still interesting to have.

I believe "worksforme" is not good enough for the bug you pointed to.

I voted for "always", but I need to explain this...

I find it extremely frustrating to use the N900 as a phone, so I end up taking my old phone with me all the time. The N900 is the same kind of "secondary device" that the N810, N800 and 770 were. - The way it is now, I have to pay €7,- a month for a second SIM card for this. If only the Finns had provided a clean way to tether the N900 with a phone the same way I could with all Maemo devices before, I'd never have a SIM in it.

I'm not voting yet. I'm still running without SIM. I haven't decided which one I'm going to install eventually. This will depend on tethering solutions, email solutions and stuff. I.e. I can't use the mail program in the N900 due to its missing support for downloading headers only, so I must use the N800 still. There's no gmail-notify either, as far as I can tell, so there goes another one..

So, for now I'll be using it without SIM. Except that I will do a quick test, due to this being a DDP device (1 week return policy).

I have a similar use case to Volt.

I travel a fair amount aborad and the international data roaming charges are horrific (even within Europe if you have a UK operator).

The other reason is that I like hill walking. Even when there is coverage I often don't want the cell stack active so I can get some piece and quiet so I just want a nice GPS unit (why would I have to pay out for a Garmin as well!).

When it comes down to it GPS is there as a piece of hardware. The unit should be able to function without cell assit - what happens if the towers go out for instance?

I voted "only when roaming", but even then I will have SIM installed for phone calls and SMS. Only cellular data traffic is disabled on my phone when roaming due to costs.

When I got my N900, first things to do were:
- Put protective coating on display
- Insert SIM card
- Insert memory card (I have only 16 GB)
- Insert battery
- Load the beast full

I switched it on after the battery was full.

What about the following usecase:
Running the N900 always/most of the time with a SIM inserted, but using the SIM only for phone calls, not for data connections.

E.g. where I live mobile phone calls are not too expensive (well still about 10 times more expensive than landline calls), but mobile data connections are very expensive.

I guess the same applies to many other countries, too.

So I think the use case "SIM for phone calls, WLAN for data" is quite common.

Just because in Finland mobile data connections are dirt cheap, that doesn't mean, that this applies to the rest of the planet, too.

This is not a question of SIM only. Here is a partial quote of an SMS I recieved when using my T-mobile Austria SIM in the Czech Republic:

"Innerhalb der EU ... 20 Ct/100kB"

So when roaming between EU countries, DATA cost a mere 2 Euro per megabyte.

We non-EU members are not so lucky to have such cheap prices. According to my provider's (Orange-IL) tarrif list, data usage in the Czech Republic costs 12 Euro per megabyte.

In short, making N900 a "must have data connection" device, is practically the same as making it a one country device.

If there is one thing I believe Nokia understands better than any other cell phone manufacturer, it is "the rest of the planet".

Edit: may not apply to the Maemo team, of course.

I voted "always" as I plan to use wifi extensively.

My plan is to use this on a pay as you go plan to reduce my costs. My thinking is to use SIP calls while wifi is available (work, home) which should reduce my call minutes used substantially. Additionally, most data transfer will be done over wifi.

In the US pay as you go data is ridiculously expensive, so I'd prefer to avoid using it whenever possible.