The following info has been on Wikipedia for ages, so, it wasn't unexpected at all:

The Nokia N900 has 32 GB eMMC and 256 MB NAND non-removable storage.[2] Additional storage is available via a hot swappable microSDHC card socket, which is certified to support up to 16 GB of additional storage.[46] The microSDHC card can be formatted with a supported file system such as ext2, ext3, FAT16 and FAT32.[citation needed]

The 32 GB eMMC is split into 3 partitions [47]:

* 2GB as ext3 mounted to /home
* 768MiB as swap
* the remainder as VFAT mounted to /home/user/MyDocs with about 25GB of free space.

The 256 MB NAND is formatted as UBIFS[48] and contains the bootloader, kernel and root directory "/"[citation needed] with about 100MB of free space.[49]

Programs larger than 500KB including dependencies should be stored in /opt which is symlinked to /home/opt and therefore located on the 2GB ext3 partition. The VFAT partition is also available for storage but needs to be used carefully as it is unmounted and exported if a usb cable is connected to the device.[49][50]

I have 27.22, less 227.6 and 1.07 user files.

It has 4kb of emails,19.5 MB of images and 102.1MB of vids (repsumably all stuff it came with (apart from the email) Then there's audio clips, web pages, contacts and documents and 'other files' to break down.

This is an old, false, rumor. Swap is on the 32GB eMMC.

You have less space available because, like the N810, Nokia ships maps for your region bundled on the device. Feel free to delete them if you don't believe you'll use them.

lolzers. So no one is able to run it then I take it? it's only 4 characters and an enter key.

Maps might take around 2GB, at least according to some early adopters.

Yes, it does, but nice to have when no Edge or 3G available.

Then your question is solved, right?

But every region/country has different sizes and thus more or less map data.

edit:
I mean Rushmore maybe have the whole US preloaded while some european countries have their smallen country loaded?

I think that was what GeneralAntilles meant.

Just buy a memory card! Stop crying.

God, there was no reason for you to bump this old thread for such an idiotic reply.

But anyways, let me contribute to this thread.

Sorry for being a little late, but when I recieved my N900 I also had 25GB of free space on mass storage. Just as cortex suggested, what I found out was that there was a 2GB folder that was preloaded with map data for the United States used by Nokia Maps. That might be the reason you're down 2GB.