I had a nice long post at the ready, lost, thanks to an expired token, so here goes my attempt at rewriting / condensing it.

If you're stuck on Verizon (or sprint) like me, there's likely no option for a Maemo or Meego based phone in the next two years. "Meanwhile, Android just keeps building and building, amassing more and more devices. Maemo is (as most users of these forums would think) a superior operating system, but does this advantage really hold up on outdated hardware and software? Would an android phone be a good 2 year stop-gap for cdma users who have already been spoiled by the joys of maemo?

I am assuming most n810 users either use them alongside a dumb-phone in their pockets (like me), or at home (as what I suppose an Ipad is striving to be) -- what main uses of an n810 can't be outdone by a much faster android phone?

• Media Player : Canola is a great player, despite startup time, but no dedicated volume button on the n810, coupled with it's large size and lack of automatic portrait mode, make it unweildy.
• Internet Browsing: Tear is good, but could be better -- tabs, speed, and scrolling are all aspects that a new android phone would do better than tear on an n810. Firefox is just around the corner for android, giving android users a full desktop quality browser. Also, multitouch zooming w/ some android models (milestone for example).
• PIM: Arguable one of the n810's weakest points, I've never gotten syncing with google calendar working 100% (currently using the GPE suite combined with erminig). From what I've seen of android's calendar, it looks much faster and friendlier

I've never owned an Android phone, so I can't speak from experience. Is the new, fresh, grass really greener?

(I will probably be updating this post as time goes on, just so many thoughts and no good way to express most of them)

I was a confirmed n810 user until Google I/O last year when Google tempted me with an Android phone and I pretty much abandoned my n810 overnight. Nearly, but not quite completely. There are a few, a very few things that the n810 does better.

Skype. Android has Skype lite: what this means is that whenever you make or receive a Skype call you are actually making a real telephone call to Skype and it goes over the Internet from there. This is great: compared with the n810 you get better sound quality and no dropouts. But, you also get charged for the phone call. In San Francisco last year Google gave everyone a 30 day SIM card so I was able to Skype back to my wife in the UK while cycling across the Golden Gate bridge(!), if I were to go back to the US again I'd be using my UK SIM card and using Skype would require an International call at £1/minute. So, Android+Skype is excellent if you don't pay for local calls and you aren't roaming. If you pay for calls, or worse are roaming, then find a friendly wifi connection and use the n810.

Maps. Same story really. Android does maps really, really well. That is, provided you have a data connection. If you're overseas and not connected to wifi then forget it. n810 maps aren't as good, but they don't require a connection. So, when I was on holiday last year the phone was barely used, it was the n810 I used for maps.

If you don't go overseas then neither of these may matter to you. For me they matter but Android still wins hands down.

droid is puny devise like n900, n810 smash droid and keep dummy phone way past upgrade time.

Droid = N900. N810 is completely outpaced by it... I have a n810 and dumbphone, works fine for me. Waiting for Nexus 2 or something like that, and will buy that or Nexus 1 if it is cheaper...