Hi!
So, I'm looking for a new phone.. and two phones got my attention - HTC HD2 and N900. Now, I love the idea of having UNIX system on my phone, but there is few questions..

1) is the community strong? Last phone I got (UIQ3 device) got pretty much screwed up by community dying.
2) how tough is it to maintain the phone? I have some experiences with Linux distros, but I don't want hardcore shell-action on my phone
3) Can I install the beta/in development apps freely?
4) How is the display, compared to HD2? Anyone knows?
5) probably the stupidest question of them all but.. I CAN use the phone in "normal" mode, as well as landscape, right?

Thanks a lot!!

Stronger than most, and extremely active. It's been around since at least 2005 and will probably continue well beyond the transition to MeeGo.

Not hard so long as you play it reasonably safe.

Sure, if you accept that there might be some moderate shell action

1) I would say it is pretty strong, I love this website!
2) Easy for most people, unless you want to hack around and install alpha stuff
3)yes
4) I think HD2 is better because it is bigger, but I have not seen either device in person

consider this before you jump on n900 or hd2

1. n900 is starting to becoming history due to meego devices coming out

2. hd2 is nice and it is confirmed that i would not get window 7 update on it later this year.

however i love my n900 the way it is .. does what i need but just to make ur money worth ... do research before you start $$$

1) the best community... everyone is very helpful and nice, but there are trolls here.. and that sucks.. >.<
4) HD2 has bigger screen.. but u'll like the resistive touch screen of n900.. it's responsive than u think it is because it is not capacitive......

The phone application runs in portrait and landscape.
Almost everything else runs in landscape only. Currently some 3rd party programs can run in portrait, and there's limited portrait support in the browser, of all places.

i own both phones, seriously i have a hard time picking which one i like more... lol

hmm is the N900 the right phone for you.... clearly it depends on different things.

if you want to have a lot of apps right out of the box... forget it. even some very "simple" apps you can get for other platforms are not available or at least very limited for the N900.

but (and there is a huge but!) if you want to have a phone you can do nearly everything with... then you are on the right track.

to be honest i don't know a single person in my circle of friends, who would like the N900. and i for myself? since i have it... everyday i think at least once "crap why doesn't it have this fu*king app?" and some minutes later "hey didn't know this phone could do that, coooool :-)"
i still carry my iPod Touch around... but i wouldn't either sell my N900 nor buy an iPhone.

If you want something with an edge, some excitement, the ability to do things you never thought of, the N900 is for you. If you want something that is 100% solid and predictable, maybe you should try something else.

My options were iPhone 3GS, Nokia E72 or an Android 2.1 phone.

I chose the N900 since I have a need to manage several websites and bring them back to life if something dies.

N900 is just about the most portable device I could find that allows full access to everything I need.

I could not care less about the IMO time wasting apps and gizmos that are more available on other platforms.

Thus, for my specific needs, N900 won hands down. If I had no access to N900 then the E72 would be my next choice...I am really not that enthused by 'superphones' like the iPhone and Android...due to strong personal preferences, I would never consider a Microsoft OS phone.

V.