hey guys..i'm new in this forum..i going to buy a nokia n900....recently there have been a lot of higher quality android phones..but i like the linux based maemo operating system...can you guys give me some good advice thus i can know if i should buy this phone or not...you guys are using this device for a while so i wish you can honestly tell me if there any problems with this device and also the best sides of this device..

like any Linux operating system it can be some work, if your not comfortable with the command line it might be a problem. its a brick, but that's personal preference, same with the touch screen, if your used to capacitive this resistive and might annoy you.

the other sides of the device is that really it is the best multi tasking on phones. it has integrated all chats into on simple platform. it can do a lot and has a lot of support from this community. sure the repos don't have millions of applications but the ones they do have are probably the ones you'll use rather than random junk. if you really needed an application on Android you can boot that onto it very simply. The Meego team are adapting Meego to run on the N900. Theres a lot of things going on for this phone even though its been abandoned. So check it out, try and get hold of one to try

The first question you should ask yourself when buying this device is ¨what youŕe looking for in this device¨. If youŕe buying it because you ¨like linux base ¨ phone, Iḿ afraid, you´ll be disappointing. I suggest you look at the specifications of the device and be sure it meets your needs before committing to buying one.

I bought the n900 two times. The first time I wanted a business phone which could also do good voice navigation. As the navigation on the n900 sucked, I returned it.

A year later (last xmas) I bought it again - this time as a toy gadget that could also act as phone. I still have it, very happy with it. It allows (and needs) lots of command line fiddling, and is really a 'pocket laptop'. Some things work great, some only so so (e.g. the email client). Voice navigation improved a lot, but is still not great.

If you just want to install apps, and just use the phone without caring about the inner workings - better get an Android. If you want and need the almighty command line or maybe like to do python coding - go for it.

Just my 2 cents, of course.

I'm just going to say one thing, I just ran inkscape on it and effectively created a couple of icons for the desktop. I am pretty sure you can't do that on any other phone. But I also almost needed to reflash today because I dd'ed some random data over the swap partition when trying to benchmark an sd card...

I don't see why? I'm a linux geek and that factored in as a large part of the reason I bought it and I haven't been disappointed. Under the N900s custom UI it really is a regular debian-based linux system. Okay, I wish some of the specs were better particularly the RAM, but for a real Linux system running on 256MB it does run well.

If you want an App market such as Apple or Android that has tons of duplicate apps, then the N900 is not for you.

If you don't want a true multi-tasking device, then stay away from the N900.

If you don't want to be installing apps or running scripts from the command line, then stay well clear of the N900.

If flashing a device scares you, then it's not for you.

but....

If you want a device that is fully customizable in every sense of the word, has up to 9 screens not 4 as they led you to believe, can do more than any Android, iPhone, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericcson put together, can run Android Gingerbread 2.3.4, Maemo, Meego, Ubuntu, can act as an emulator for countless consoles, has skype built in, supports multiple IM in one conversation window, has multiple awesome multimedia functions, can be overclocked past 1GHz, has 32GB built in storage and supports an extra 16GB in SD storage, has a community of people loving and supporting the N900, then this is definitely the Smartphone for you.

See it as a pocketable laptop with IR, Bluetooth, WIFI, 3G+ and it's a phone.

Highly recommended!

The best way to describe the N900 in my opinion, is what has been said on here many times. It is a mobile Linux computer with a built in cellular modem. A computer that can handle some functions of a phone, not the other way around.

MMS support? wonky at best (although Havoc mode works fine for me) tons of or the latest/greatest apps? No way. Lots of games? Nope.

But...

Full blown Linux environment/console? Yes. Fully featured builds of common Linux tools & networking utilities? absolutely! (nmap, tcpdump, aircrack-ng, nc, perl, python, vim, etc... Good solid UI? IMO, Yes.

Even as a Linux user and network programmer I admit I don't use anywhere near the capability of my N900, but I still think it is a solid device. Only close device right now is the MyTouch, which has a hardware keyboard.