I think I've worked out how it is choosing who to phone.

They're all people in my 'recently called list', which shows up when you activate the phone mode. I find that every so often the phone will simply activate in its pouch (I wear it in a pouch round my neck in portrait mode some of the time), so I am gently 'bumping' one of the recent contacts, and bringing up the details. In the unlikely event I 'bump' it again, it will call.

Edit - I'm hoping that turning off 'turn control' will solve this, as it started when I enabled that.

Is anyone else confused by the fact that each 'recent' contact only appears once - so if I call someone on on Monday, and then again on Thursday the record of the Monday call is lost?

I hope there will be a call history log similar to the symbian 3rd edition were you can view your call log activity up to 30 days, that was nice for when you dont save a contact and still need the number.

Do you lock the device before you put it in the pouch?

It happened again. Phone was locked lying on the table before me. I did not notice anything with the phone until I got a call from a person (same person as yesterday), saying that I just tried to call him.
No recent call list or contacts list or contacts icons on the desktop were open.

If this doesn't show up in the recent call list then I would assume it's in reality calling many more contacts than you think. I mean, I've accidentally called lots of folks with my old phone before I enabled the auto-locking (and that did show up in the call list, and only 1 out of ten, if that, would ever tell me.)
And I've got calls from people many times, hearing only some background noise, so presumably they did the same as I've done - accidentally hitting a button. I've never called anyone back about that.

So, if these spurious calls are not showing up in the recent call list on the N900 the problem could actually be huge. You can't rely on everyone calling you back - most folks probably wouldn't.

Yes, but "butt-dialing" is something else than having the phone lying on the table without touching it.

Maybe your n900 thinks you're lonely and is trying to make contact with people for you. If you ignore it; with luck it will find numbers for some hot dates for you next.

Seriously, that is VERY wierd.

I thought it was "ball-calling"? http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...term=ball+call

It was called "butt-dialing" in one T-Mobile US ad I remember.
I guess ball-calling would hurt like hell with the pressure you'd need to push buttons. *g*

Perhaps the biggest advantage of a capacitive screen yet!