depends what you use your phone for.

n8 has the best hardware specs by far and software will get better - if you can live without a physical keyboard it's possibly the best. ui is a lttle tired but will be getting a makeover later this year apparantly. it has usb otg so you could plug a keyboard in.

camera and video is awesome for a phone, music is also pretty good except for album art. the hdmi out if you install nokia big screen is terrific.

blackberries are crap except as an email device.

desire z ok, but crap camera and hinge and general build seems a bit fragile.

getting the most expensive, flogging it and buying a N900 would be a decent idea also.

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/01/2..._htc_desire_z/
Of the bunch you probably want the desire Z, it beats the N900 on CPU and has similar spec overall. You won't feel the need to overclock your phone to get it to perform as it should. And isn't Nokia, which is nice.

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/01/2..._htc_7_trophy/
Windows phone 7 is awful, and sales numbers are almost as bad as the N900, not to mention the lack of functionality and general apps. (cut and paste is coming soon) Read up on it before you buy, no customisation, you have to have their apps, you can't run your own, you can't do what you want to the phone (like backgrounds etc)

N8 is another Nokia phone so I am bias against it and it is an old OS.

Blackberry's are good phones but are for business, they are not casual and social phones, little customisation and very limited in what they can do beyond their work role.

my mate just got an upgrade to a Desire Z which he stuck on eBay, it finally went for GBP £404. Do the maths. Second hand N900 times 2.

Qt-centric Symbian^3 is hardly an old OS. It's based on an old OS. As is OS/X, Windows 7 and all Linux variants. Symbian^3 is hardly out of beta yet. They haven't even received their to-be net browser yet.

I'd join the Android band wagon, the only thing you will really lose is the community

Ha! Blackberries are useful if you want to remember what phones used to be capable of in 2007...

Another vote for 'buy the one that sells for most on ebay and get a secondhand n900' from me

You should have a poll on the thread.

Anyway - my vote goes with "get the most expensive, sell, buy, welcomed back to the community, enjoyment" option.

I'd go for second hand n900 but if i had to buy a NEW phone, i'd go for the n8, it really impressed me.

I have an N8 for my work phone now, and it just gets better and better. Qt support is there and plenty of nice apps, and most importantly its got a working mail for exchange with full provisioning support.

HDMI, usb OTG , great battery life, opera and swype plus great cam and vids are just a bonus.

==but then I've still got my N900 ===

I say get the N8 if you do any qt or qml stuff, or if you just like Nokia (of all the brands I have owned, they have consistently been the best quality hardware and best sounding phones--including the N900). Too bad the E7 is not available, or that might be an option for you.

If the upcoming Symbian update is any good, symbian will be comparable to android. They have to get rid of the lagginess in the UI, and perhaps make it look a little fancier, but Symbian, Android, and iOS are all in the same mold as phones-you-install-apps-on. Maemo (and hopefuly Meego) are another class of phones-that-are-also-general-purpose-computers. Android has more apps, but every time I read a list of "must have" apps for android I don't feel like I must have any of them. In fact, most people I know that have android or apple phones do little more than texting and playing angry birds. And Qt (especially with the mobility and qml components) is a VERY powerful platform for development and has the potential to deliver better apps than you will find on other phones, though it is not guaranteed that anyone will deliver these apps.

N8 gives you a better piece of hardware and a nice camera. It is a gamble whether Nokia will get it together with Symbian (I think they will, but others are more pessimistic), but in the end I would pick N8 just because I like having something different than everyone else I see.