Something that might help some of y'all justify a switch to NokiaUSA is the rebate. The $50 rebate only works if you ordered between Nov. 16 and Dec 31. But you also have to get it in before the 8th of Jan. Unfortunately, my pre-order from amazon was earlier than Nov 16th, so getting the n900 from NokiaUSA and sending in the rebate offsets the taxes I had to pay; i.e. it's the exact same price. I just have to wait 8-10 weeks to get my 50 bucks back.

I did not want to add to the angst of this thread until I had something solid to say.

I pre-ordered on 18 September with overnight shipping to California and had my price adjusted down down twice. The second time was on 20 Nov to $529.

I had been in the "Shipping Soon" (no changes can be made) limbo from Tues 24 Nov till this morning Sun 29 Nov. At 12:30 AM this morning I received my "Your Order Has Shipped" email, with an estimated delivery date of 30 Nov. FedEx tracking does not have any location history on my package, however it does show some interesting date history.

"Shipping information sent to FedEx" 27 Nov 3PM EST origin-time
"Anticipated ship date" 28 Nov
"Estimated Delivery" 30 Nov by 3PM

There was significant delay between these events and my shipping notification (yes, I was checking Amazon's site a, um, err, "few" times daily). This leads to lean toward the theory that Amazon has some misguided notion that no one should receive the N900 before 30 Nov. Note that I have always had overnight shipping on this order.

Note that I contacted Amazon for a price drop/match on 20 Nov and yet my order just shipped. Clearly doing this does not put you at the end of the queue.

Amazon does not charge sales tax in CA, Nokia, Newegg and Dell do. I am not terribly keen on rebates (worth less than full dollar value due to risk/hassle). So I choose and stayed with Amazon. I have had multiple terrible experiences with yo-yo-ing shipping dated from Dell, so I will only order from them for Dell products.

I was not terribly keen to reorder and lose my place in queue based on my one-month-from-release-to-shipping experience with the N810 ordered from Nokia/Letstalk. (Remember the freezer-workaround to boot issues? (race condition in the kernel))

I am not terribly surprised that the FedEx location history is missing, FedEx has never been great on real-time location information, but their estimated delivery dates are solid -- focus on what really matters. Contrast to UPS which has excellent real-time updates to agonize over while trying to figure what is taking your package so long.

I expect an exciting and bumpy start with my N900 eased with having my N810 and old mobile on hot standby.

Mine just changed to shipped. Looks like they shipped it already on the 28th but didn't update the status.

State: Massachusetts
Order Date: 9/16
Shipping: 1 day shipping (Amazon Prime)
Price: Changed it twice down to $529.99
Order #: 105-0999778-xxxxxxxx
Status: Shipped on November 28, Delivery estimate: November 30

I also just received my tracking number this morning, though the Amazon and FedEx tracking pages tell me that it left the warehouses two days ago. Strange, but I won't complain!

State: California
Order Date: 9/17
Shipping: 1 day shipping
Price: Changed it once to $529.99
Order #: 102-5074224-xxxxxxx
Status:

Shipped on November 29, 2009
Shipping estimate:November 27, 2009
Delivery estimate:November 30, 2009

So if I preorder from Amazon now is it safe to say I'd get my phone soon, or will it still be shipping after 12/25 ?

Nobody knows, amazon doesn't know either.

Thought I'd share that I've received my shipping notice as well from amazon. I had 1 day shipping, and had pre-ordered 9/16. I checked the tracking number and it's sitting at my local fedex facility right now!! Should be here tomorrow!

Good luck to everyone else "in line" at Amazon, I hope everyone gets their order filled soon.

www.nokiausa.com

Seriously. Forget Amazon unless you want your phone next year.

Sorry man--I've got other posts in the NokiaUSA thread expressing my disappointment with that system. I'm "banned" from buying online and I think through phone orders.

Once we receive more copies, we will be able to ship it to you. It is not uncommon for there to be a delay of several weeks

lol receive more Copies? thought they meant a genuine not copies. Seems like we all getting the CLONES N900? lol.