Personally the n900 is perfect for me but I am geeky that way.

My favourite app is Easy Debian - Linux is in my pocket and yes I probably am pleased to see you.

If Nokia want to be serious smartphone competitor then they need to change their approach drastically.

You know what will happen next? The typical crowd will come in, dissect his verbiage, overlooking any points by simply stating this one thing: "The Nokia N900 wasn't meant to be a mass marketed device."

Therefore, once you bought the N900, you entered into the ever exclusive halls of Maemo geekdom and you were to believe that marketing hype no longer applies. It's not a phone, it's a mobile computer. It's step 4 out of a step 5 process. Ovi Store is not necessary, all the better applications are in the repository. And ultimately, it would invariably get dropped by Nokia; the forums are the only support you will ever need.

That seems to be the quasi-mantra of some around these parts.

My n900 (Dec 09) has never neeed to be flashed, even though I install & use loads of -devel app's on it. How come (am I just a lucky sod?) - nope, it's because I read about stuff which is still in development before I install it. That way I understand:

(a) how stable it currently is (dev's own opinion/caveats; early adopter feedback)
(b) it's functionality (& therfore it's risk level to my phone if buggy)
(c) the correct way to install & run it whilst still under development

oh ... and regarding hard to configure community app's

I think you're putting too much onus on the phone to be smart and too little on yourself.
I admit that most folks want stuff to "just work" these days but the reality is that stuff running on a PC is inherently complex and unless you put some effort into learning the basics you'll not often get the benefit out. It's give a man a fish/give a man a rod here ... I'll take the rod, every time :-)

The N900 will always be best suited for those who like to tinker/learn as well as just "use" their phone. That is (or should be) a prime reason why they bought an open(ish) pocket computer with (adequate) phone capability in the first place, no?

I've read your blog.
Mainly you complain, that N900 has no Android.
This misses the point completely!

I bought my N900 (which I am currently just exploring, scratching
on the surface) just because it has _no_ Win-Something, _no_ Android, _no_ Symbian.

The Maemo Linux on N900 is a very good USP.

Some pro's I found until now:
1) The GUI is how I expect a phone GUI to be.
2) It's fast.
3) The way it merges contact entries is intuitive, even better than the Palm stuff I was used to.
4) xterm ! You can control the phone not the other way round.
5) conversation history is presented in an intuitive manner
6) number of applications is already huge after that relative short time (announcement August 27, 2009, where was Android after
a bit more than 12 month?) and is growing.
7) Meego seems to be ready for N900:
http://www.computerbase.de/news/soft...00-verfuegbar/
and
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900
8) firefox is usable on the phone!
9) I don't know why you wait for Ovi maps. I use it here. Canada, Austria...whatever...
10) you can work seemlessly with Google...as far as search is concerned and I do not need more Google.

The only cons up to now:
a) battery is a bit short. N900 seems to share this with other smartphones. But there are workarounds.
b) synchronisation seems to be a bit difficult. I did not try this up to now but it will be an issue when using the phone at work.
c) email tool has no filter

Amen brother! Am with ya!

I look at the E7 and I weep for it was born with Symbianemia.....poor thing....it doesn't know! it's not its fault! oh my miserable child......

Anssi disagrees. He still thinks Nokia is number #1...

<image removed - inappropriate>

Edit=Yodude: The image that was removed was a picture of Anssi holding up one finger which I took to be the universal sign for #1. I now understand that there is some distinction attributed to the digit one extends and apparently Anssi was holding up the wrong finger.

It's just this annoying problem of customers wanting stuff to "just work".

Imagine if Nokia actually stayed with maemo and developed it over time.

You could get a vastly improved phone app, free OVI maps that every other symbian-owning person use and maybe attract third-party companies to develop apps.

Why should Nokia devote it's development resources and precious time on maemo?

Let's use those resources and spend time doing it all again with Meego.

Apple & Google must be doing something wrong - they keep attracting pesky customers and those apps are spreading everywhere - luckily we don't have that problem - thanks Nokia.

well well...i wonder if people ever read reviews before buying stuff they cant handle. admittedly, the phone has its issues but it's got its bright sides as well. and i got a pretty good impression of both reading a review titled "testing the tech-expert phone"

google as always is your friend before you spend 500+ on phones/notebooks/cars/etc...

and personally i dont want android on my phone since the first trojans have appeared...

Well, at least in the blog there is the option of maybe, not the stern 'never again' as in the post Although, the critique more seems like a 'why isn't my N900 an Android phone' issue rather than a critique of Maemo itself (there are many shortcomings, but the post focuses on differences to Android). A question to the OP, though, just out of curiosity - did you ever try out a desktop Linux and if yes, what was your opinion about it ?

I totally disagree with him saying Nokia should have jumped on the Android OS "adopting the Android revolution which is clearly the OS to be using at the moment"

I am getting to the stage where I hate google and their dominance over almost everything! They get profits from every phone, by every manufacturer and every developer if everyone switches to Android. that scares me! and that is not good for a comeptative inoavative market.

And not just with Android google is pretty much begining to take control of everything! From Maps, eMail, youtube, search, google will be something to fear at this rate!