I use n900 as a main device. Though I don't use GSM/3G calls at all. I call with SIP or XMPP.

To me that would be the kind of choice I hate!

Quizmaster "We have two beautiful women on stage here, candidate, you are allowed to kiss only one of them... once. Choose the correct one and she'll be yours, faithfull and all."

If you come from (Linux) netbook and dumbphone land, then N900 is perfect choice.

N9 Harmattan UI is completely different and if you used to use phone with one hand, N900 will have (frustrating) learning curve. And it is also slower than N9 with its 256MB RAM.

Use two devices for some time and decide after. IMHO

If you can, own both. For more social oriented activities, N9 is nice. For more hacking and mess around, N900 is best.

2012 was a great year for Nokia N9, with many software developments released so now MeeGo Harmattan share many features with Maemo 5 :
- inception/open kernel mode give chroot, capability of running binaries without being installed, etc;
- overclocking from 1.0 GHz to 1.3 GHz;
- Easy Debian Harmattan with native vkb (opaque or transparent) inside LXDE;
- running SDK on device to compile and package any software;
- multiboot with some options, like Android 4.0/4.1, Nemo Mobile and Backup Menu;
- and many other great softwares.

Ok, N900 is more open and has a great physical keyboard. I use both, exchanging them every 2 months, it is a relief to go back to N900's keyboard, but I also see N9 like a real pocket computer doing things impossible to Android, iOS, Symbian, etc.

Sounds like a solution I could use for my dilemma

well those are just some apps and drivers, maybe som libs, not the OS, right?

Yup. That's a given. But we do have the image file that we use to flash our n900 devices right?

I was thinking then:

@ Either reverse engineer the image file or

@ Create an emulator on the N9 to run the N900 image file.

Possible?

Cheers,
rmh

@HELLASISGREECE, @GrimyHR & @AapoRantalainen

Think of it this way. Let's say I bought a fairly new desktop PC. I then have several choices when it comes to the OSes that we have out in the market that I can install. Lets be creative in this example that I'm going to provide. I partition the hard drive and install Windows 8, Ubuntu 12, Debian Squeeze & Windows 98. Now, my point here is that the desktop 'HARDWARE' is capable. Compare it with the N9. The N9 is capable also right?

Going back to the desktop example, since the hardware is more than capable of running Windows 98, I see this as being 'BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE.' Let us consider now the N900, the community was able to run a Windows OS variant via emulation wherein Windows is a proprietary OS, the source code isn't available. I highly doubt it that Microsoft gave us the source code when we emulated their OS on our N900s. In this light, I think that Nokia is becoming 'EVIL' also like Microsoft.

To sum it up, we do have the image file that we use to flash our N900 devices right? I was thinking then:

@ Either reverse engineer the image file to reveal the closed-source code then run it natively using our N9 meego/harmattan hardware & software ( less the fragile USB port, cannot read SIM card problems, etc. that we have on our N900s ); or

@ Create an emulator on the N9 to run the N900 image file.

Possible?

Cheers,
rmh

Even with all bugs and hardware fails ever happened (broken usb port: built my working display in another broken n900, with all ok but display )

the best phone I've ever had! And a very, very nice and helpful community here!

I'm still using it, since a few days with randomly that red-line symbol, which forces me to reboot to get back 3G or gms.
If it completely fails, I'd like to have a N950, which would be difficult...
Not much open-source phones, and even less with a hardware keyboard out there