What kind of price drop can we expect after the phone is released? I am toying with an idea of pre-ordering one from Nokia although I have no use for BH-703 (bonus) as I have platronics. If waiting a week or 2 may save me $100 great otherwise.. most likely I need to pre-order it now..

+1
I prefer a smaller but thicker N900 since I want to use it as a phone, instead of keeping the dimensions of the N810.
The keyboard looks like it's approximately the size of the N810's, since the D-pad is removed.
Thinner would have been better, but I don't want to lose the HW keyboard.
And after all, I'm currently carrying my N810 in an aluminum case which make it 20mm thick, and it still fits well in my front pockets, so I don't think the thickness will bother me anyway.



For sure ! Next time they'll write :
"hey, that N900 is $649, which I don't understand, because my last phone was free ( my source, so you can see that I'm a serious journalist and I'm not bullcrapping you when I say that phone is insanely expensive : T-mobile free phones )"

Why would the price in 2 weeks drop $100? Heck, why would the price drop any time soon. That will happen some time in 2010.

I would assume that when Buy.com and Dell or others will pick up N900 we should see prices fluctuating.. if Nokia will keep N900 exclusive to Nokia's website for the next 6 months now this is a different story..

So I guess the question is (having not purchased unlocked device ever), what should I expect from Nokia - keeping it exclusive for 6 months on their website or are we going to see other online retailers selling N900 in Oct?

N900 price announced on the first Norwegian web store. It's actually 22.66 euro cheaper than what they charge for the N97.

After much deliberation, I've finally come to the conclusion that I'll not get a N900. The price, isn't really that bad. I won't even bring up the fact I have an iPhone... that's not even the point. In fact, my iPhone 3G is really bigger reason why I would want to get an N900 - it's about time for me to upgrade to something less... confined.

But with one more possible, lesser (think N97 Mini to the original N97) Fremantle project to be announced/released and then a possible Harmattan project to be released in 2010... I'm going to wait it out.

And that sucks. I'm just not hearing the things I wanted to hear in order for me to buy this as quickly as I did my N810. I was there on day one for that.

Now... all of the talk about prices though, for the Americans the price(s) of the unlocked iPhone 3GS really doesn't hit home like it would in Europe simply because it is not an option here in the US. It is in other places and the prices... ouch. But I do find it odd that the prices are fluctuating as much as I've seen in this thread.

And that... is not Apple's fault; not entirely. That's each country having different rules in the EU it seems. After the MSRP is set, it should be pretty standard. I do not like the dollar/pound/euro being the same though... that's a really stupid thing I've seen only Apple and Sony pull.

Anyway... I'll wait. Who knows... an AT&T version might come out subsidized in the US for a price that will hook me. That's what happened with the iPhone.

Andrewfblack: according to Coinmill.com, 500 GBP is equivalent to US$ 818:

http://coinmill.com/GBP_USD.html#GBP=500

So it's even worse than you thought... :-)

Don't companies pay lot more taxes when selling in Europe when compared to selling in the US? How can we expect them not to sell for a higher price in Europe when they are forking a much larger portion of the money to the local government?

Europe is not a country.
Every government have different taxes and every country is a different market with different pricing.

Yes, except the dollar price is lower than the European one WITHOUT taxes.