I guess we won't see a Device before May this year at the stores even if they announce it at the CES.

So perhaps, what about buying a old N900 at eBay?

After using my N900 for 14 Months I would say I wouldn't wait 4 Month without such a Device. And we don't know what is currently in the pipeline. (without Keyboard? only Capacitive Touchscreen? Harmattan with deb or full MeeGo core?)

If you buy a N900 now you know what you get.

N900 seems like a crufty and obsolete phone by now. I wonder if it's possible to buy an Android phone and run Maemo/Meego on it?

What device is better than N900?

Display: not less than 800*480 (and not more than 4.1 inches)
Camera: not less than 5Mpx autofocus with flash
Keyboard: hardware QWERTY
Processor: not slower than N900
Memory: expandable to at least 32GB
Find it!
Wish: landscape/portrait support

Note: HTC Desire, Nexus S, Droid X don't have hardware keyboard.

Ok, HTC Vision (HTC Desire Z) might be good.
Capacitive screen, for better or for worse.
Slightly smaller/practically same battery 1300mAh.
Internal memory is only 4GB.
Digital compass. First HSPA+ device? 800 MHz CPU. Optical trackpad.
No FM transmitter?
Comparable with N900, with pros and cons. Released 2010, November.

Motorola Droid 2
Touch screen: resistive or capacitive?
Slightly larger battery 1400mAh.
Internal memory is only 8GB.
eCompass. 1 GHz processor
No FM transmitter?
Comparable with N900, with pros and cons. Better than HTC Vision? Released 2010, August.

MeeGo was ported to HTC Desire and Nexus S, don't know about HTC Vision.


I thought so! The feature list above is understated. I would have written "expandable to at least 64GB" or "internal memory at least 32GB", but then it would be plain impossible to find such a device - large internal memory is a rarity today.
I would have written "FM transceiver", but I don't use it that much.
I would have written "walkie-talkie included", but even N900 doesn't have it (toughphone does, but it's completely another concept http://www.youmobile.org/blogs/entry...hones-from-JCB).


Side-note: MeeGo should be easier to port to an Android device (IMHO).
Oh, yes, Google search turned up Nexus S running MeeGo and Ubuntu.
And: Maemo ported to Archos tablet.
In both cases WiFi mentioned as non-working.

Already done

Why get an N900? Meego will be ages till you see anything viable, most bugs fixed etc.

Get a stop gap phone, there are plenty of much better phones in hardware, support, manufacture quality, software offerings etc. With much better ones in the pipeline (dual core etc). And despite the vapourware and rumous that Nokia work with, these phones have been seen at the CES and other shows. They will actually be on sale some time soon.

Base your decision on what the phone can do against the competition and also look at what Nokia offers. Ovi store is still pants after a year, Ovi maps is even worse. Hardware is surpassed by HTC and Samsung phones, Android has a market place etc.

I am bias as the N900 is rubbish, but read round and don't just get an old tech phone with no official support for the sake of it, hoping that what comes after will be something you want, based on hearsay, a few devel' efforts and Nokia vapourware.


I don't get your post? There were plenty of phones much better than the N900 when the N900 came out if you look at just hardware, 32 GB expandable is the norm for a lot of phones now and the N900 can't use SD above 16GB? (as I understand it). HTC desire Z has more memory, faster chip, hardware keyboard and is supported? The only real saving grace for the N900 is the dedicated memory for apps (Though some come close), yet as the N900 was about 30 quid more expensive than any other phone at the time, you paid for that.

I don't want to use Android, I would quite like to be able to hack on Meego. While the Desire Z has better specs than the N900, it doesn't have a hugely fast processor and is pretty pricey. It's also a Snapdragon processor and I'm not sure as to the status of GPU acceleration with those devices.

I am a little tempted by the Motorola Milestone 2, as it appears it's now possible to get around the efuse business, and as it uses an OMAP processor (though I don't know enough about the PowerVR binary blob driver to be sure that it will be work and therefore justify spending quite a bit of money on the phone)

I just can't recommend a machine that has zero official support and some of the most integrated bits (read: Skype) will not get any updates... all it takes is a change in their network and you're left with limited functionality if any access at all.

Something that anybody that's seen any purplelib based communication based go where for months it was not able to access the Yahoo network reliably. Imagine that happening to something that folks rely upon.

With MeeGo forthcoming, there will probably be no updates to Modest - it needs them - or the browser, none to the Flash plugin and that increases by day how many pieces get left in limbo.

32 SDHC works (but there are no fast cards aviable at the moment) - so 64GB Memory at the N900 is possible

If you want to make any SIP calls then STAY AWAY from N900. Sip calls are quite choppy with N900. Moreover it doesnt work well with Freeswitch server too.

Since meego uses the same codebase of telepathy and pulseaudio as Maemo, it will be broken there too. Nokia and Collabora need to get their act together to get a working sip on N900/Meego devices.

should I buy a N900 or wait for the new N9?
There's several things that make me not buy it now. For example bluetooth 3.0 is a big issue for me since I use a lot my phone as a modem; bluetooth 2.0 is very limited (3Mbp/s).
The other thing of course is the N9 appearance. If it would be on sale today probably I would buy it now. I feel like buying a N900 now is like wasting money because a new generation will appear...
For me N9 as only 3 inconvenients, not having IRDA, available now and the eventual price.