The N900 is targeted to anyone interested in this device regardless of stereotype. I never saw any marketing verbiage from Nokia saying, "The N900 is for geeks, nerds, and technophiles." There is a video interview recently where the Vice President said something along the same lines that if you like the N900, go for it.

I could only imagine the ad... it starts off with the phone alarm going off, because he needs no clocks. a late 20 something scrawny and scruffy guy gets up. He goes upstairs and mom has his breakfast ready. he checks the bus schedule on his n900 and plug's in his earphones, calls up some last.fm and walks to the stop. on the bus he is playing mario cart al la NS emulator until he arrives at his cube at work....

awesome.

You missed the close up of the Star Trek wallpaper on the desktop...

Nokia has repeatedly stated that the N900 and maemo 5 are step 4 of 5. They are hiring rapidly in their maemo department even hiring ex-Apple executives to join the maemo devices team. There is very little chance (read that as ZERO chance) of them bailing out before the N1000/Harmattan.

The N900 will see full support until the next device comes out regardless of sales. I believe that Nokia is betting on its services on top of Nokia hardware being the real money maker, regardless of whether that hardware is running maemo or Symbian.

I think the N900 is really interesting except for a few things that I would have done differently and I'll probably get one eventually because I'm a gadget freak. But I don't think I'm the target audience and I'm not sure who is. Plus, whoever it is, I hope they don't come across this thread which is less than helpful in spots. Assuming the target audience is interested in using the phone (rather than developing for the phone) does the N900 make sense for any part of that audience?

What one or two items do you think the N900 does better than the iPhone, the PalmPre, an Android phone, or a WinMo phone?

I'm not a tech savvy person (i'm just a gadget enthusiast, and I'm buying this phone for a few reasons:
Free apps :P i've been paying a bundle for blackberry apps that don't really please me. It's fully open source meaning that I can REALLY contribute to the community offering ideas and testing.

Always on - I love that I'll always be on my MSN & GTALK accounts. I can always make skype calls with my best friends in other countries.

REAL web browsing .

I don't know how to program, and I don't plan to. I don't know how to debug or enter into root mode for android or anything like that. But I'm SOLD on this device. 32 gigs of space for music videos and documents, really flashy OS. The only thing I want is for me to be able to get a decent battery life out of it. On my blackberry bold on 3G and a 1500 oem mah battery I can get about 5 hours of constant use. Let's see what I'll get on the N900. I already ordered a spare battery and spare outlet charger hehehe.

Free apps?

Mmmm Since the appstore model Apple has created, I would be surprised if many decent developers would continue to make any useful apps absolutely free and not try to sell them via Ovi Store.

Personally, I am a C/C++ developer for 15 years, the first few apps I write will be free while I learn GTK and Maemo. But any useful apps after that I would attempt to charge 1 or 2 Euros.

Okay... I blink and there is 6 pages of responses. That has never happened to me before :B

So, interesting enough, most people seem to agree to a point that the N900 isn't going to win over Joe Average (This Joe A. is a U.N. citizen). And people are okay with that. I agree that as a step 4 of 5 device, maybe it's not intended to be.

However, I want Maemo to be a success. Enough of a success that Nokia will put resouces in it and not just have it as a backup plan to the next Symbian series. For now, enough of a success to make sure step 5 will be reached.

How much of a success does it need to be? Well, maybe not much. Maybe I just am too impatient. The 770, N800 and N810 were not big sellers, and still we got the N900. I just think a success means Maemo will get further, faster. If Maemo isn't a success in 2010, I think Android will get further, faster.

I want Maemo to become Nokias point of focus. And that will only happen if it gathers interest in broader masses.

But, we'll wait for step 5 of 5. Okay.

At some time in the future, though, say step 6 of 5, I'd like to see full featured Maemo devices in the 5800 price range.

I agree with mobiledivide. I also belive Noka will full support the N900 and will provide improvments for the device (1st and 3rd party software).

Let's not kid ourselfs, Nokia is no small company. They are in the money making business. I doubt very much, that the previous tablets generated large profits. (N810 Wimax Edition? What a waste of development money). Yet they made this 4th version of that silly Linux powered tablet. Why? Because they know they cannot rely on Symbian alone. Not againts iPhone, WebOS, Android or even the mythical WinMo7.
By the way, the phone part in Symbian was just an afterthought. Epoc, Symbian's ancestor, was an OS for PDAs, not phones. And like WinMo < 7 it is really old and rusty.
But back to my point, I think this Maemo-thing is just a big science experiment. Can we (=they =Nokia) produces something better if we start from scratch? They could also have called it Symbian X or Symbian NT.
But what if it fails? What if the Nx00 does not sell? Oh well, than they will try something else. (Maybe licence Android? Ok just kidding. There is also a better Symbian in the making.)

Ok I lost myself a bit in this...
What I wanted to say. I don't think that Nokia needs to sell the N900 to Otto or Joe or Mary. Not this time, not yet. Nokia keeps saying, that the N97 is the flagship and S60 the software they focus on. But it never hurts to have an extra jocker up your sleeves.

Last words:
if ((N900 sold to Joe) or (N900 sold to geek)) {
Nokia.happy++;
}

--Andy

Extra bonus question: Is the writer of this long nonsensical entry a geek or a Joe?

Q: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?

A: He won't as long as he keeps valuing form over function (or until Maemo's form equals its functions).