The evolution of the currency rates is really unfortunate. It will be very hard for me to pay for a Neo990, that's about twice what I was willing to pay for it. I'm not a developper, I'm just a guy who loved the N900, and I'm afraid I wouldn't need a Neo900 or, worse, that it wouldn't be a good smartphone for my needs (just to be clear, N900 and Maemo perfectly fulfilled my needs).

But anyway, I'm trying hard to convince myself and make a down payment. Apart from this first hard decision, and that of whether I should get a complete Neo900 or just the board to put in one of my old N900s, I have a few questions. They probably have been asked already, and/or are naive, but this thread has been fairly active lately and I can't catch up with all the unread pages (though I was kind of remotely following the thread until recently).

- I'm not comfortable with choosing the modem variant. I don't even fully understand the criteria that are used to differentiate them in the shop, which is not a good sign. The technical sheets are Chinese to me. Any help would be much appreciated! If it helps, I live in Europe, but if the price is the same for worldwide connection (including Europe), then I'd surely prefer it, as I happen to travel for work, sometimes.
- Is the "End of 2015" ETA a safe estimation? It doesn't need to be very accurate, but I'd like to know if huge delays should still be expected or, conversely, if the main barriers before production have already been passed (except funding, of course).
- Will the Neo900's USB port be more reliable/solid than the N900's?
- I seem to recall that Maemo 5 compatibility would be guaranteed (though I do like the Debian plan too), but I don't find it in the FAQ anymore. Has this goal been discarded?
- What exactly is a down payment? Excuse me but I'm not a native speaker and I'm not quite sure what it corresponds to. If I pay 350€ now (minus the voucher), will I need to pay 640€ later (provided that the price stabilizes at about 990€), or is that just a preorder confirmation worth 350€ but paid only at a later point when the device is available (990€ payment at the end, or 350€ loss in case I leave the ship)?
- Is there a deadline for making the down payment, before the shop is closed/the voucher expires/the expected stock of boards or Neo900s runs low?

Thanks for your answers.

P.S.
Extremely naive question, and I reckon the answer is negative, but asking stupid questions does not hurt: can we hope running Android applications in the final OS, using an emulator, development SDK or something like that, if the OS actually is Debian?