I'm in that camp. I want my device to work quickly, and well. But I also want the ability to make it do more then what was dreamed of.

Probably another significant factor is regret. (e.g. did I make the right choice?)

They didn't know about that... so I was still right. It's just... amazing how little some people want to know about their machine.

I think it's obvious that most people wants a device that 'works, quickly and easily out of the box' except certain type of developers that are trying to conquer a brand new platform with clear incentives.

It's the degree of "mucking about the system to reach a certain idealized promise" that people have different tolerance for.

For example, one of the basic things that 'smartphones' are supposed to do is to sync your 'PIM' data from your main computer. These are:
contacts, calendar, notes, tasks list and bookmarks. For most existing smartphones (iphone, bb, winmo) they can do it 'quickly and easily' with Windows, OSX and Linux. Ironically, afaik, the N900 is only guaranteed to do this to a Windows PC for now.

Given what seems to be a big achilles heel, to a user who hasn't migrated their personal data to cloud computing (Say Google's), this should be seen as a considerable disadvantage to this system. You can buy the N900, you can sync it to most of your online data cachets (mailboxes, maybe bookmark, limited icals) but you'll have to break your normal workflow and opt to either unsync-ed data or to migrate your whole workflow to the n900 itself. Sure, it lives up to 'mobile computing' tagline, but i wouldn't want to be limited to it when i'm sitting on my desktop facing a full keyboard and a 24" screen.

I think the sync issue is a particularly big sticking point which doesn't have a simple and straightforward solution that can be provided by the community, unless Nokia ports Ovi Suite to OSX and Linux and fulfills the features parity against their competitors.

That is unlikely. If it does become mainstream through Nokia, it will spread - maybe won't called Maemo in alternative iterations, but since it's open source it can't be confined like the iPhoneOS.

I Just Love all these Gartner Magic Quadrants, predictions by industry experts, and Gurus of the direction the wind is blowing.

none of whom predicted a melt down of the global economy, and the complete kick up the backside that Average Joe has had in the last 18 Months.

No Wonder Average Joe has gone on to buy a distress purchase like a Shiny new iPhone to cheer himself up, so he can stroke it and make himself feel better.

Mike C

Yeah, sorry, I diluted the flavor of your comment. Your story was more about "amazing" people, and less about "amazing" devices.

i do believe the signs where there, ttho they could not nail down if it was 5 days or 5 years until it happened...

I disagree when you talk 5 years. There were analysts calling a financial meltdown impending in 2005, 2006. By early 2008 enough signs were available for any clear-thinking person. The gamblers ignored all this at their peril.