@attila77: what exactly is the false conclusion? Those are the prices available to the public. I don't expect him to explain why nokia failed to get the subsidized pricing at this point in time, and he's already touched on the issue by giving an approximate lowered price IF T-mobile picks it up.

Right, no phone has gotten thru US's 'thick' market without carrier subsidies. So I'm not expecting the N900 to garner popularity at $650 a pop. That's essentially what the writer was driving at and I agree with him.

Well, it looks like AT&T might be eyeing the N900 after all:
http://maemotalk.com/2009/09/05/att-...he-nokia-n900/

Speaking of game-changing, an article in I think the NY Times recently said the iPhone was a game-changer in that customers who bought one are using a heck of a lot of bandwidth and mucking up AT&T even further than it was already mucked.

I imagine that the N900 would do even more in that direction; if so, I can see how some carriers might be reluctant to carry it besides its resistance to being crippled.

That seems to be a very unconvincing article -- it's just someone saying that AT&T "might be" eyeing it, with no evidence.

Hey, I've got news like that! Did you know that Bill Gates might be thinking of buying an N900? True, he might be!

There isn't any, of course. There never will be unless US carriers start doing business the way carriers do elsewhere, which will happen about when pigs not only fly, but are jet-propelled. Very few people here would be willing to shell out the 'real' price of their phone up front, even a cheap one. Few people even know what their phone really costs - it was free or $49.95 or whatever, that's all they know or care. But were not the only ones. Europeans get 'free' or 'cheap' (actually financing for) phones on contracts too.

Millions and millions of US users are happy with Sprint, Veri$on and AT&T and their 'deals'. They know nothing about CDMA vs GSM, never heard of a SIM card, and think smartphone = iPhone, period. Paying $650 for a Nokia(?) smartphone and having to switch to T-Mobile to use the 3G sounds totally insane to them.

The N900 will be a small niche market in the US, really do next to nothing to expand Nokia's presence here. Nokia's got a real tough road in the US smartphone market. Even if T-Mobile does eventually offer it, without a Google boost like the G1 had and having to paddle hard against the iPhone tide it will remain nothing more than an enthusiast's item in the US. To succed here Nokia must make deals with T-Mobile and at least 1 more of the major carriers.

I expect I'll always be one of a handful of N900 owners in North America. But that has nothing to do with how well it sells in the rest of the world. Elsewhere, where consumers are better informed and the world isn't run by iPhones, I expect it will do pretty well.

I think it's brilliant. The iPhone isn't branded hardly at all, and the Android devices are *barely* branded by the carriers, if at all. Why should Maemo be any different? Given how heavily branded Symbian devices are, I think it's great that Nokia is testing the waters of a platform that doesn't even support branding - it's a good opportunity for Nokia to build case studies for unbranded smartphones being successful for both Nokia and the carrier. Those case studies, if proven, could be used to make pitching Symbian devices easier.

Yes, the bad boy image of the N900 makes me want one (but I still can't afford it).

So, if I open 'ACMEcorp' in the US, buy N900s from NokiaUSA for 650$, buy a shipload of contracts from T-mobile, and then sell the N900 for 100$ + (adequately marked up) plan, then it would mean the iPhone's pricing is fatal as it's twice the price of ACMEcorp's N900 offer ?

@attila77: Well, no, because you'll go bankrupt in a few days financing linux geeks like us. But don't let that certain financial doom stop you from going forth with that brilliant plan please I'm first in line to be ACMEcorp's customer.

If price is the only detraction to wide market appeal of the N900, then yes I can see your point. At any rate, if this bothers you so much, why don't you email the writer.

I do think that the N900 has what it takes to become a cult device, especially with the potential of open source development. You never know how "domesticated" step 5 of 5 will be, so this may well be as good as it gets for a long time to come!

The N900 has quite obviously been a work of passion for almost everyone involved in it, and I am proud to have been a small part of this team.