hey guys there are a few things i was wondering about the phone regarding it running idle. first of how much power does it use to run idle? and speaking of that, how long is the average lifetime of the processor? and which scenario is better; leaving the phone off or on if you are not using it for a long period of time (months)? is it good to leave the phone running if you're not using it? will it significantly affect the processor?

For power consumption of the N900, see this table in the wiki:

http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_Hardware_Power_Consumption

Generally, it is better to not shutdown your phone when not using it, because reboot draws a significant amount of power.

But when you want to leave your phone off for months, then your phone will make this decision for you. Even when completely idle, the battery will be drained after a few days, and it will simply shutdown itself. Keeping it on continous power supply for months is not good for the lifetime of the LiIon battery.

Urban legend. It's better to turn device off, cause ~8 hours of running idle will draw *much* more power than rebooting.

Exception to this is using of special power saving standby mode (phone wakes up from it in ~2 second), started from console. But, to use it, You must turn off-line mode on (in other case, phone will awake itself on every network probing). Of course, even with off-line mode, You need to manually put phone into standby. Anyway, if You're planing to not use it for few days, it's always better to turn it off.

Ps.

In real standby mode, Phone use ~40 mA in 8-9 hours.

thanks for the reply guys. and what about the processor? is it good if i keep it running or not? i'm going to use another phone in the meantime, so the N900 will be offline for maybe a month or two and i don't know whether i should keep it running (charge it when the battery is low or in other words, leave it idle but on) or just leave it off. will it fry my processor or significantly affect the processor / reduce the processor's lifetime?

I think it's the battery that is more likely to deteriorate if not stored correctly (when left unused for some months). I remember reading somewhere that you are better off storing it with a decent charge left in it - but not full, and definitely not empty.

These guys recommend 40% and in a cool dry place.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...tore_batteries

Charge LiPo battery between 40-80% for storage. then, you can safely leave it as-is.

As for N900 unused for few months - why the heck would You like to left it turned on? Of course, turn it off.

Not meaning to be rude, but mA is current, energy is (can be) measured in mAh (or Joule if you want the SI unit)

Mine idles at 20mA "real use", meaning 7 xterms and xchat logged in to about 40 irc channels.

My spare N900 idles about a week on 3g doing nothing :P

For longterm:
Remove the battery, don't store it in the N900, and don't store it empty.

Nice catch, of course I mean mAh.