If you want a device to tinker with, then the N900 is unique (as
others have said).

If you'd like to get a phone that just works and has all the new and
snazzy features and slick interfaces to major web services, you might
want to look elsewhere. Except for the generous 32 GB of internal
memory, the specs on the N900 are inferior to today's mid range
Android devices, which can be bought without a contract for under
$200.

I got an N900 because it was unlocked and had a full Linux userspace.
It was thus easy to chroot into another distro (first easy debian, now
archlinux arm) so I could use the phone as a pocket laptop. I was
hoping to port Linux applications to the N900, but decided that this
would be a waste of time once Nokia abandoned Maemo/Meego.

I'm still very happy with the N900 and hope to be able to use it for
at least two more years. If I were in the market for a phone today, I
would likely buy an Android phone that's easy to root; I would still,
of course, chroot into a Linux environment on the phone so I could run
emacs. But I would also keep an eye on what Jolla is up to.

It is not a good phone. : /
never was tbh.

it has other virtues though

Buying a N900 will mean this :
1) You won't get cutting edge games
2) You won't get all the cutting edge apps
3) You won't get all the official apps from newspaper, movies website and any other stuff which, from my point of view, are or might be of some interest for day to day use
4) No full smoothness. That to be said, a lot of work has been done to improve and is still under progress, but we'll never reach what an Iphone is able to achieve in terms of smoothness. Honestly I don't care.

BUT you'll get most of the really needed apps for a smartphone. By the way, most companies (if not all) now provide a mobile version of their website so in the end it answers #3 needs.
You should consider #1 and #2 then. See if you really need these "cutting edge" stuff. #4 is not really a matter of concern now that thumb2 + overclocking is here imo

From my point of view, N900 outperform the other smartphones because of these features :
- FM transmitter
- FM receiver
- Hardware Keyboard
- Hacker stuff (wifi cracking, and ??)
- Multi boot
- MicroSD (lol Iphone), you just get 32GB + an extra 32GB as external memory....
- USB Host Mode : connect your HDD or camera to your N900 via USB
- Easy Debian : a full Desktop Linux distribution inside Maemo
- and probably a lot of other things but it's getting late here so I will stop now

You can do a lot of things with your N900 you won't be able to achieve with other smartphones (even with N9). But the other way is true either, you will be able to do things with iOS or Android you won't be able to do with an N9 or N900.

And yes we keep having core updates thanks to a lot of very talented people among the Maemo community. And I will dare say among the Meego, Nemo and Tizen community too.

Buying an N900 means:
- you will never be able to record stutter-free videos.

Of course, you will be able to do many other things.

I just bought an N900. Not interested in the cutting edge if what Ive heard about this device is true.

I would like to thank everyone who posted on the tread,

It has android (eww) and has zero portabilty...
also no hw qwerty

so, why comparing note to N900?

apples vs oranges my man

Vlad_on_the_road pretty much summed up the story of the N900.

I purchased a N9 a few months ago, but now find myself using the N900 again. My batteries are near end-of-life, but aside from that, my device has held up (even after taking it apart a few times).

The N900 will be very slow to respond if you ask too much from it. I don't even bother browsing the web on-device anymore, unless I'm using lynx. If you are very strong with the linux command line, you will not be able to put this device down.

My current draw to the N900 is it's ability to connect to Nomachine NX (remote desktop). I have a customized version of NX that I ssh into (behind a VPN), where I run all of my applications. Windows RDP support is pretty good, but quite a bit slower.