Got my n900 two months ago and must say that at least for me it's kind of disappointing. Biggest thing what I don't like is the unfinished, beta-like, feeling of the system. Yeah, yeah, I know it's linux and so on. I tried nitdroid and meego, of course neither one still doesn't offer even same functions.

Some of you say that I should have done my homework before bying it, but why? If I've been using Nokia phones for 15 years why suddenly I would have to think that they give me less, especially when the phone itself is in the more expensive end.
When you install linux on your computer it doesn't have everything and you have to tinker with it. But it's free, phones are consumer products, meant to be used out of the box.

If you buy a new car for yourself, you just assume that it has everything what eveyone else has. Nokia N900 is like a car what has blinkers installed but no wires going to them, and the factory says that we're not going to put those wires in but you can if you know how to.

And especially disappointing is how Nokia obviously doesn't care about updating maemo, or even trying to make it to a same level than others.

You've raised some fair points, but I think some of the comparisons are off (car analogies never work right in tech).

Let's hope things improve.

Happy new year.

so what phone will you get now?

Well, it all depends on what you paid for it. Personally, I understood that it might have some rough edges, and allowed for that. I installed a few tweaking apps, changed some configuration, OC'd it, and now I've got a really nice device that's extremely responsive.
Sure, I might have to drop to the console to mess with things... but I -love- that. It makes it so much cooler IMHO.

I really don't see a purpose of this thread, if you don't like it, just sell it... I love it as it is, and love every one of its flaws. Gives me stuff to do

TRX.

And funny thing is that I'm not a complete noob, but not any kind of a linux genious either. What nokia could do, make more stuff open source, like camera drivers etc. One, biggest, thing I do like in this machine are the possibilities.
But never say never, lets see where this thing goes.

And happy new year for all.

Just for the record, but Linux |= unfinished. beta-like, let alone disappointing. But depending on the specific distribution you are using, your needs and your tech savvy-ness, yes, it can be all of that. Personally I don´t think most Linux distro´s are ready for prime time, id est, mass use.

Why? Ahum. I, for one, need to be carefull with the money I spend. Especially with pricy products like this.

You yourself are already giving an answer to the former question "why?". I agree car metaphores seldom work but let´s stick to it. You knew up front that the n900 used a different OS than other Nokia´s, right? Wouldn´t it be fair to compare it to a car brand you always buy that decides to bring out a new model but with a completely different built engine? And if that´s fair, wouldn´t it be wise than to do a serious test drive and research before you buy, even if you bought cars of that brand for years?

Agree. Annoying there is no warning sticker al though I do understand a sticker saying "phreaks and geeks only" will not be good for the sales figures.

Not in my part of the world. Quite the opposite, actually.

If you put it this way, I´d say the wires are there but they suffers a bit from interference, here and there. It is true though that the blinkers do not stay on and you need to keep the button pressed to keep them on...

If you expect a company to be caring about your needs before theirs, yes, than it´s disappointing.

Considering 'new' platforms cannot be born overnight that's sadly more the norm than the exception - 'old' platforms are reaching the end of their stretchability into modern OS/UI paradigms. Just take a look at the stuff that is left out in Windows Phone 7 compared to WinMo 6.x, or how painfully limited (almost dumbphone) the first iPhone was. Not saying that's a pleasant experience or good in any shape or form, just that it's sometimes a bit difficult for new stuff to start as a superset of functionality when the old/competing one has been developed for decade(s).

I think your comparison is way off the mark TBH. Simply because you're using a hardware example:

"If you buy a new car for yourself, you just assume that it has everything what eveyone else has. Nokia N900 is like a car what has blinkers installed but no wires going to them, and the factory says that we're not going to put those wires in but you can if you know how to."

I've never yet heard of anybody who's had to open up their N900 to get something to work by installing extra hardware/wiring.

I've used Nokias since 1996, and TBH I think the N900 is probably one of the best they've made. I say one of the best because I used the N73 and the N95. They were brilliant handsets (once all the bugs were killed, and some do still remain), but I don't think they come close to the N900.

I was a bit like you when I first got the N900 (and I did research it, for 3 months). I was disappointed that there was no Bluetooth sharing and no MMS, but I found out how to enable those features. There's a few things it still can't do that the N95 could, but looking back, I hardly used them on the N95 anyway.
I've had a few crashes, but I put that down to my tinkering rather than slating Nokia, even though things could have been..... nay, SHOULD have been better on their part.

The N900 was never meant to be sold as a mainstream device. There was only one network that stocked the N900 and they peeved a lot of people by saying it could transfer files and media via Bluetooth, send MMS, and run Java apps out of the box on their website.

As for Nokia making everything open source. A lot of the tech in the N900 is licensed out to other manufacturers, so Nokia are getting a bit of revenue from that. Otherwise you would have paid a lot more for the phone than you wanted to.

I still think you should have done your homework - Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Sadly, I'm a noob at Maemo/Linux, and I'm using only apps in the 'downloads' repository, but I still think it's a great phone (except for lack of 3G video call and Ovi maps with turn-by-turn guidance)