I love my n900 too!

As soon as I got wind of the N900, Symbian was out of the window for me. I was an N82 owner, and I don't miss that phone at all apart from the Camera as it had a proper flash.

The N900 has been a breath of fresh air for me, and I managed to get it discounted too. I've not had any issues with it, no random reboots, no struggles with signals of any kind, and my laptop can now safely be dedicated to what I enjoy most, DJing.

Application wise, I'm not bothered by the lack of them, because it makes it a surprise every time I update my application manager to find new stuff. Fair play to all of the developers out there working hard to make and port apps to this device, program writing is one thing I could never grasp!

Functionality wise, yeah stuff is missing, but either I don't worry about it because I really don't use it often enough, or just work around it with an app to replace it! fMMS is a good example of an app I don't use often, but is handy to have because every now and then people do like to send me an MMS. The rest i'm just happy to wait for the software updates to implement them. This is a research and discovery device in my eyes, not a device that is meant to be perfect. If I wanted that, I'd get an iPhone (of which I will never because I have used them, and find menus and features an arse to use!).

The reason people have moans, are unhappy and manage to break their devices are because they are careless with the way they use them and don't research products prior to purchasing them. When I first heard about the N900, and the fact it ran linux and was an upgrade to the N800/N810 and primarily the fact they decided to include phone features, I was all over the net trying to gather every last detail about how it worked, what it does, because it appealed to me for what I want from a device.

Mapping is another feature of the device, I don't really worry about, it works, and gets me from A to B as I don't need voices, I have my eyes. Sygic is a nice touch and I might purchase that when my real satnav dies.

As regards Meego, I don't think I will take up on it quickly as I feel its going down the Android/Iphone route of usability that will restrict it. As long as Maemo 5 is looked after by people it will go for many years, I see QT as an additional useful feature atop native linux, not the future.

That is my story

Andy

in the past six months I've gone from the Iphone to the HTC Magic to the HTC Hero and finally to the N900.

Each phone had its strengths but it always felt like something was missing. For me, the N900 satisfies every requirement I have in a device, AS IT IS. Anything else is gravy

On my desktop I run a debian system since more than 10 years. Never reinstalled, only smooth upgrades, the hardware aound changed, but the system just evolved. And Debian runs on 12 (twelve) hardware architechtures from Alpha to Sparc. Debian itself had 17 years to mature.

In the handheld the situation is far less fortunate. My zaurus runs Cacko, which is a fine system but no longer maintained. There are alternatives (Angstrom, pdaXrom) which are slow an incomplete. This was the situation 7 years ago.

So what do we have now? OS2006 was discarded for OS2007. OS2007 was discarded for OS2008, which was discarded for Maemo5, which is suprseeded by Mer, but Mer will be discarded for MeeGo.

So is "linux on handhelds" going in circles? Are we building one 80% system after the other without ever even getting a 90% system? Do we blindly believe in the latest announcements rather than bringing one system to perfection?

I wish MeeGo all the best, but I am afraid it wil turn out to be yet another 80% system and will be discarded for something else.

before I got my phone I had to choose, n97 or n900. I did some research, and although I never held an n900, I held an n97. didnt like. I probably would have gotten it except for one thing: the auto popup / tilting screen. I found it awful, and just more stuff to break in the future.

Everytime I hear about the n97, good or bad, I quickly think to myself "I'm glad I chose my n900"

As N900 we users we should perhaps accept two things:

1) Because we invested in the 'Next Big Thing' it will inevitably be in it's infancy and not yet fully developed. The sense of adventure, anticipation and potential is what this is all about, surely?

2) Device ownership (and therefore OS experience) is but a fleeting thing - next year there'll be a new device with a new OS and we'll all move on anyway. My N900 will be ebay fodder in a year or so at best, but that's life!

There are many things my N900 cannot do compared to other smartphones; some of these things are important and obvious to me, but maybe not to others. It is unrealistic to expect a silver bullet or instant panacea by way of a software update.

We should savour and enjoy the N900/Maemo experience. We are at the very frontier of technology, but like all pioneers we cannot expect all the comforts of home...

If I'd wanted a sensible, slick, easy-to-use smartphone that ticks all the important boxes I'd've bought an E72 or kept the X6 I had for 10 days before getting bored and upgrading to the N900.

N900, PR1.2, Maemo/Meego/Symbian3 ??!! - what a rush, man!

This is easy to accept. 'not ever fully developed' will be much harder to accept. For example, if the N900 goes EOL without ever getting 3G video calling I will feel let down.

I don't know a single other person who I'd recommend the N900 to (over, say the nexus one). However for me, it's the best phone out there. If mine fell under a car I'd buy another tomorrow.

Is any technology fully developed before it is replaced?

I've just found an old Windows '95 disk - why didn't they fully develop that before bringing out a new product?

The easy answer is to be cynical and suggest Mfrs just want to chase profit. That may be partly true, but sometimes it's better to start over with a platform that will be easier and faster to advance and keep up with the opposition.

However, spanner is right - we'll all feel a bit cheated if Maemo is pushed into the sidelines and Meego is exhibited as the Great White Hope...

This thread just shows (again) that 99% of the users do not know history. Ask any n770/800/810 user what Nokia did to them. Long standing bugs were suddenly fixed in maemo5. Ooops, won't run on n810, sorry, goodbye, have a nice day.

Since maemo5 has been announced, there has been not a single bugfix for the older tablets.

So now you may understand why some n900 users fear that there will be no more updates/fixes: Nokia has done it before, and is *very* good at it.

Be warned.

Why would/should Users be aware of history ?

Do we really expect Users to trawl the internet to fully research the history and development of a product they are buying? That is a different world altogether!

Users generally believe what they are told by advertising, peer opinion and the occasional review (I am a User, not a Developer, although I like to think I do some pretty thorough research before I buy)

If a User has a bad experience, they tend to blame it on the brand, not the details of the technology. They just want something that works well enough and appeals to their self-image.

Users make up the bulk of the market (even for devices like the N770/800/810/900 with their Developer appeal) so we should not sneer at what is perfectly natural ignorance.

After all, if it wasn't for Users, Developers would be paying a lot more for their devices, if they could get hold of them at all...