I love my N900. And nothing compares to it, for my needs. Here's one reason why:

Every year I download the unofficial SXSW torrent. It contains many GBs of mp3s (this year 1125). The way I listen to it is this: I queue up the songs, and after I listen to one I then decide whether to delete it or move it to a folder I named 'Maybes' or one I named 'Keepers'. Well I recently got an Android tablet (2.2) thinking it could handle this task. Turns out it really can't. At first it just choked on the folder with that many files--lots of 'Not Responding' messages for the file browser. So I split the songs into multiple folders. That helped, but Android still just can't compare to the ease with which Maemo can do this. Even though there's all that talk about multitasking, it doesn't really do it. At the end of listening to each song I would go back to the file browser. But it would open as if for the first time. So I had to navigate to the folder I needed each time. Doing this while working was so slow and halting I had to stop and move everything to my N900. It really made me appreciate even more (I thought not possible) how much more capable Maemo is.

It really gets me riled how people just don't get it. iOS can't do this at all because there is no concept of folders for music files. I know most people don't do this sort of task, but now I know why. Because they can't.

Its only these moments that make us truly appreciate the power the combination of Maemo on the N900!

Unfortunately only a niche market require these sort of functions which is why the N900 was quickly dropped from Nokia's caring hand

Still I love my N900 and NOTHING will really ever compare to it

I use it everyday for so many things...It's definitely got to be a great device!!!

I was crushed by learning of the AT&T buyout of TMobile because I firmly believed I would use it until it died. But I don't know if I can handle 2G only. [And I despise AT&T with the white hot intensity....]

Well, it is early to worry about this when it is a year before anything happens, and it possible that nothing happens. Even if it does happen, there might be something better.

At worst, you have a device that you can use with wifi. Maybe not as flexible as having a data plan, but still very useful.

I use my N900 on AT&T... The only time I use EDGE really is when I'm not near a wifi spot, which is not often. Of all the places I go, the only ones without wifi are movie theaters really. Even parks and RV places often have wifi these days.

I have no wifi at work (government job, so I can't use the internet either). So I need 3G for sure. Yesterday I used EDGE for a short period just to test. For general browsing it might be ok. But streaming radio is just not possible without many irritating interruptions.

i wont buy any other platform until they have n900 multitasking

It's going to be another year at least (it'll probably take that long for the merger to go through) before 3G is switched to AT&T frequencies, might well be longer because they won't do it straight away after the merger has gone through either, I would expect them to give T-Mobile customers time to actually upgrade their handsets to ones that will work on AT&T frequencies. So you've got a while before you need to start worrying about it.

When it does happen, what might be an option is getting a data-plan with a MiFi-type device so you can still have a 3G (or maybe 4G) connection to your N900. Or possibly a new phone that supports WiFi tethering and keeping the N900 just as an internet tablet.

I will give up my N900 when they prise it from my cold, dead fingers...