I've been looking to buy a Nokia N900. A bit late, I know, but I love flip-style phones (currently own an N97) and I can't stand these new touch-only smartphones.

I'm a bit picky and would prefer a new one or at least "as new", which makes my quest even more difficult.
So I came across this listing on ebay, which states "Nokia N900 in NEW condition", but I'm worried that it might be fake.
It does come with what appears to be an original box, and from what I can tell if has all the visual featurs of an original N900.

However, the phone is said to be "made in Finland"; even says so on the sticker behind the battery (box sticker is not photographed) and I've seen numerous discussions where people say most N900 phones are made in Korea.
Second issue is the "peel off" sticker from the screen protector. Is that like a standard thing for aftermarket screen protectors, or is it something you would find in a refurbished phone? I'm worried that it might contain non-original parts.

What do you guys think, does it look safe?
I plan on asking for a photo of the box sticker, to see if it matches the phone. Is there anything else I can ask the seller in order to confirm authenticity?

Thanks!

The case looks original - it's still all matte and stuff.

Finland-made N900s are HW revision 1801 though - IIRC they were only sent out during Maemo Summit and the preorder program on Maemo.org.

This is likely to be one of the Hong Kong refurbs.
100 quid is a bit much for them. Hunt for the 30-60 ones, and buy two in case the other breaks.

Easiest way to verify is a screenshot from X-Terminal of

I (as stated many times on TMO) used to have N900 device which was "Made in Finland" like the one from your link. It was refurbished device from China, it was genuine of course, but with "reinforced" (my a**) USB port, many talk time hours on the clock, and the screen was dead after few months (if not faster). This one might be the same, worse, or better - you'll never know before You buy.
Some time ago on eBay in UK I saw brand new N900 in box with papers for 200£, and that is the price of real new one. Did sell mine (brand new as well) for 200€ (which I regred till now, I should leve it with me), so now You can see the diference in pricing.

Leave an thread in Buy/Sell, AFAIK there are good few lads here with more then one BNIB N900's on TMO. Who knows, maybe one will be short on cash.

Good luck.

Thanks for the replies!

Is there something wrong or different about revision 1801?

What exactly do you guys mean by Hong Kong / China refurbs? Are these phones originally from the Chinese market, or just regular phones sent to China for repairs?

Is X-Terminal part of the stock N900 firmware, or is it an app you have to install separately?

So bottom line is that 100 quid might be too much for this.
I do however like your optimism about being able to find a BNIB N900. I recently missed out on an opportunity to get a new (never used) N900 from a US seller who didn't ship overseas, and I thought I'd never find a chance like that again.

I guess I'll just wait a little longer and see what comes up.

There are two main fake N900s:

The fake-fake has a TV tuner and can only run J2ME midlets looks just like a N900 but super fake. I don't see these anymore.

Then there is the real rebuild fakes. These use new plastic outers like we will use for the Neo900 and a rebuilt system board.
This is a roll of the dice, I personally bought one thinking it was old stock. There were problems from the start where I couldn't uninstall/reinstall some apps. I tried to reflash and it reached 40% and bricked, never could get it into flash mode again.

The real-fakes are what you find now. Best case it was a relatively unused N900 which only needed a fixed USB. Worst case like mine several chips were hot air soldered off other phones, my system board looks like it was modded inside a coal mine.

I would suggest avoiding any 'NEW!!' N900s at this point and buy a good used phone from a personal auction, not a big auction seller or ebay store. I have even been burned buying an allegedly almost new phone at almost-new-used price here at TMO. The phone had a non-working microSD slot and the GSM chip was loose so I couldn't use extended batteries without loosing the SIM registration. It was from a prominent poster so even here caviat emptor, buyer beware.

Hit your local classifieds. I bought 4 used N900s over the past year in various stages of wear. I now have one mint, two used and one completely broken N900 for spares for a total cost of $280. Funny part is I only have one OEM charger and two batteries between all of them.

So keep looking, and definitely stay away from the new ones on Ebay. At this point real nee N900s are as rare as pink unicorns.

Amazon claims to have new N900s for sale, via their partners. It's unlikely they really are new, of course, but Amazon's return policy is very good, even when the item comes from their partner. If you bought an N900 at the Amazon site that was claimed to be new, and it turned out to be an obvious lemon, I'll bet Amazon would make sure you got a refund.

For what it's worth I bought a "new" N900 through Amazon about 9 months ago, and as far as I could tell, it really was new.

Amazon is the best place to buy. Bought many, all refurbished with some better than others, but all performed well. None was a complete fake. you will notice that someone left an app that doesnt come with factory settings or the keyboard is a bit worn, but overall the refurbished units look and feel good. returned only once out of many purchases.

You could get a Chinese N900 Frankenstein-rebuild on Amazon or elsewhere with clean new outer plastic but unless it has at least a year warranty I would avoid them as there can be problems when chips are re-soldered from dead non-working boards to bring one phone back to life. They look new but they mostly have an ashtray for a system board from sloppy fast soldering and hot air guns.
A Franken900(Chinese N900 rebuild) is one of those rare cases where the extended warranty really makes financial sense.

I think to avoid fakes the best bet would be to buy a locked phone from a private seller. It is very unlikely that any large GSM carrier will provide fakes on its contracts.

Then you can either get a free pay-as-you-go SIM card or ask the seller to get a free SIM card for you and send it along with the phone and unlock the phone for a small fee.