it is again amazing, following this forum and read some threads gives me more information on the device as I wanted:
radioFM I/O - check
MMS - WIP
SMS - check
email - check
IM - check
java - missing (dont know if WIP but I guess nokia is looking at it)
magnetometer/compass - missing (but if you find a magnetometer-chip fitting to the main cam socket, you are more than invited to tell the guys who think of engineering their own in DIY)
Accelerometer - check
QuakeIIIArena runs smooth- check
CIR - check
IrDA - missing
handwriting-recognition - (afaik) WIP
ASR - WIP
portrait mode - check
portrait kbd - WIP
landscape mode - check
open source - check
GPL - check
battery lasts a day of normal use - check
front cam - check
main cam - check
video call - WIP
is actually real and I am awake - check (aua)
walks the dog - missing (damn)
turn by turn nav wo dataplan - check

list doesnt end - check


its in the specs, or was mentioned here, in the wiki, planet, twitter, youtube, news, ...

whats the point of this thread?

This is SPARTA! (sorry needed it!)
told us what was missing in reviews previews and so on, I guess I know more about the N900 as I do about my current phone and I dont have it in my hands yet!

Yes, please see Jaffa's "Downloading Ovi Maps without a network connection" page.

Ovi Maps is quite ok in fact once you get used to the slightly nonstandard UI... What sucks is the current search implementation that uses a data connection to find locations even altough the data is available locally...
Note to Nokia: Maps must work without Dataconnection, using local maps!!!!

I disagree Please try maeMaps in it's current implementation for a first draft. Has search, routing, map types, traffic info, wikipedia layer and local search. It even supports GPS if you install the maemo-location plugin for MicroB. Only 15 kB.
Tell me what you need more and I will try to add it (next todo: hacking around with Streetview :-)
Of course it' still missing a proper help/doc, but it works really well for me.

It has offline ROUTING, but turn-by-turn is neither available offline nor is it free. Also, does anyone know if they got OVI Maps 3.0 on the device? I read somewhere that it had v1.x!

Full agreement from me there.

On the plus side though, Ovi Maps handles addresses far better than Wayfinder ever did. Wayfinder required me to know the ZIP code of any address I wanted to visit. Ovi Maps, even v1.0, on the N900 happily accepts mailing addresses without ZIP codes for locations.

Technically you would only need a data connection long enough for the device to get the initial GPS satellite location information (the A in assisted GPS). After that no data connection is necessary once the device has a fix on the sats.

ZIP codes.. if you're trying to find a location you don't know, how are you supposed to know the zip code? Even in my own town there are almost as many zip codes as streets, and I only know the one of where I live. ZIP codes are only used when snail-mailing people, and as almost nobody does this these days (except when getting something shipped to yourself) then almost nobody will know the zip code of some street address they know about. I wonder how Wayfinder could think up something like that. My TomTom navigator simply asks for city, street, number.

Good to hear that Ovi Maps is less insane than Wayfinder!

the beta version of vpnc worked fine for me. I was able to connect to my office with no issues. http://pi.pe/15e6i4

special thanks 2 u my friend.....