1) Test new software on it *without* the risk of thrashing the real N900 device; 2) Instead of warning users not to install software from extra-devel or extra-testing we could warn them to first test that software in the emulator and, why not, give some feedback; 2) Have a development environment that doesn't require the real device for testing and debugging; 3) One developer could configure the SDK + emulator on his/her home system, office and notebook. Then he/her could use git or mercurial to synchronize it all and be able to code wherever and whenever there is available time without the need to depend on the real device; 4) A larger group could contribute to porting and developing apps for the N900 device if only they could use the emulator without having to buy one real device. For instance: an upstream maintainer of some package could agree to accept some patches and even test them on the emulator.