For those interested....

$140 @ buy.com

N900 guy myself, but thought I would throw a bone...lol

If mine was to conk out on me I'd be seriously tempted. Still use it daily for reading e-books, maps/gps, email, Skype, alarmclock and light surfing. No other design has come close imo. I paid $180 (with Microsoft cash-back) over 3 years ago for it. The fact that it's still this expensive tells something about it's perceived value.

How did you get money from Microsoft for a Linux device?

I don't know how much the device was before the cash-back but more than four years ago I paid almost $500 to get it the week it was launched. Dropping to $180 in a year isn't a sign of good perceived value.

For handheld devices it's pretty standard, the expectation being that after a year or so one or more replacement models would be released.

My first N810 (at launch) cost me £315.98. At the same time I got a few N800s as holiday presents for £129.99, whereas I paid £283.50 for the same device less than 11 months earlier. And this was just an incremental update (same guts plus keyboard & gps, minus a few other bits), that the manufacturer marketed as a "sibling" rather than "successor" device.

If people knew that it would take another entire year for the N900 to be released then the N810 might have held its price better, but in late 2008 when it seemed that OMAP3 Fremantle devices with HSPA data and HD cameras were just around the corner, $180 for an N810 sounds like a fair deal.

They had some rebate program by that name, if you shopped through Windows Live, if I remember right. You're right, the irony is delicious. But I think there also was a sizeable ebay rebate involved - I may have signed up for a credit card for that. Anyway, for me the N810 was and remains an incredibly useful device. I think Android devices are now slowly evolving into a similar design (Samsung Galaxy 4.0, 5.0). I'm still waiting.