Hey peeps.
my "new" N900 that i just got from eBay and updated to cssu turned out to be a refurbished phone with Chinese parts. I discovered this when I opened it up and saw the characters over everything. I opened it up because I wasn't getting anything above 2.5g in San Francisco. After I exposed them they promised full refund. The "new" phone cost 130 bucks, which was actually one of the cheaper ones on eBay.

I love my n900.. But still late in 2013 have not found anything that appeals to me more and have been waiting for the Jolla sailfish phone.. but that's rumored to be over 500 bucks at launch.

Does anyone know of any devices worthy of being an n900 equal or n900 killer for the same price or less (130?)

any help would be nice. I don't have many options.. I'm thinking of a GSM version of the Motorola Droid. it seems to be similar spec wise, but I've never had an android device. And I know they don't support their older platforms anymore. any thoughts?

A N9 can be found for $150 (want mine?) and they are awesome phones.

Thanks for the offer. But n9 doesn't seem to have a whole lot of apps. I want something a little more streamline. another reason why i'm not waiting for the Jolla Sailfish joint.

You're using N900, and you're wanting something more "mainstream" than N9?

If "apps" are all you're about, I don't know what you're still doing on real Linux device. Crapdroid market get 100+ "new", erhm, games (have problem to call this wave of, mostly, crap, as "games") every day, with similar number of other crapware "apps", (full of low-quality content, visual over-hype, form over usability, and adds. Tons of adds.). It should be your nirvana.
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Now, if you're asking - on maemo.org - about "better" options than N900, then there are none, N9 including. There (probably) *will* be a upgrade in form of Neo900, but count for 700 EUR rather, and for sure it won' be more "mainstream". Which I'm glad for

/Estel

You wont find anything... save up for a neo900 board.. like the rest of us

You will look everywhere and you'll come back to N900. I'd save up for now to have enuf for the neon900....
I also was thinkin of lookin for other options like the N950, Lumia 1020 and lumia 1520 but, am gonna let my maemo rule.

Define "better". In terms of what?

• HW specs? Pretty much any modern phone will beat N900 on that.
• Availability of "apps"? See Estel's post above and head in the direction of Android or even iPhone.
• Camera? Much as it hurts me to say that, go for a Lumia. You might have a hard time finding one in your price range though.
• Hardware keyboard? You might be stuffed here. The most recent decent phone I found that has one was Samsung SGH T839 Sidekick, and that was released in 2011.
• Closest to a computer in your pocket? Forget it, there's nothing else!

I beg to differ on that, actually...

Just today, about an hour ago when I was commuting back home from work by train I did all of the following;

• built kernel modules
• debugged boot to find out what dependencies were missing
• tarred&gzipped&uploaded the changed modules to my cloud
• read and replied to email
• read&posted to TMO

And that was done using my N9...

More mainstream? With HW-keyboard? Motorola Droid 4.
Under $130? Probably no.

But as "pocket-PC" as N900? lol, no!

PS.: You are asking for device better than N900 on TMO? There is no mobile phone (internet tablet ala pocket-tux) as good as N900. Maybe (a huge maybe) N950. But under 150 dolars?!