exactly my sentiments... many of the 'results' people rave about in the overclocking threads are those that come standard in other OS (smooth transitions, etc).

Interesting thread!! I bought the N900 after reading a load of reviews on latest smartphoes, the main things for me were the web browser (speed, flash player etc), onboard memory capacity, camera quality and qwerty keyboard. I decided to say no to apple due to still having to pay ridiculous price for phone even when paying over £35 a week for two years?! N900 was free! Also I hate how apple/I-tunes is so controling. U see the adverts, heres an app that you can use to work out who owes what on a resteraunt bill etc so what?! use a frigin calculator!!! and you have to pay for the app! I had no idea you could run console EMUs on N900 or anything like that, its all been a pleasant suprise. Only thing I am dissapointed with is the lacking of OVI store, may as well not have bothers, plus no decent nav system. Though I now have Sygic which is great. I had no idea what maemo really was b4 buying the phone, but I am pleasantly suprised by things daily and mainly found via this site!!!!

Well I consider myself a fairly low end user myself having limited experience of linux/maego. Now before anyone suggests I should have gotten an iphone/android et al I did research this. An iphone would have worked for me but for several things, its too damn expensive, you can't change the battery and the memory is too small. Plus most of the apps are useless to me. The N900 was the right price as I sold my upgrade phone on ebay and bought it that way. I can change batteries if out and about and no charger available. The apps available in extra's fulfill my needs and I'm waiting for fmms to come out of devel before installing it. Similarly for several other apps.
Again people will say other phones would be better/cheaper but I disagree and its my money. On this I can open the several medical textbooks I have in ebook formats, open toxbase, open eBNF etc. watch movies listen to music/audiobooks and know that somewhere an enthusiast is developing even more interesting stuff that I can get for free.
Do I have a problem with no customisable ring tones etc? Not really because thats the sort of stuff I consider a bit juvenile. If your phone rings answer it or don't.
Incidently I mainly chose this internet tablet because I spend long periods of time at work by myself and getting the N900 ticked the boxes I consider important. Without wishing to sound too fanboyish I'd like to thank Nokia and the maemo community for this great device!

good to see some users standing by their reasons to buy N900.

Can we all encourage other users to post responsibly in the same manner?

my reason for the n900 purchase was being with nokia a while and a bit disappointed with the n97 wanted to try something new. i was told by iphone/other users saying no no no stay away "its for geeks" and "its not stable" and now im loving showing the same folk the beast and listening to em say "wow you can do that FOR FREE" since day one ive not looked back

My reason to buy the N900 is it can do allmost everything like my computer.

I can even remote controll my N900.
I can put the N900 everywhere in my house and if i get a sms, I VNC to it and reply.
I don't even have to be near to my phone to use it :P

I even can do port forwarding in SSH so i can control everything in my LAN @ home.

The only thing i would like to see is a solid PPTP or IPSEC connector to a windows machine... don't like openVPN , does not feel VPNish to me.. can't get used to it for some reason.

But just to say it in 2 words.

awesome phone.

Should have put the guy in a headlock until he submitted to nerding out with the N900.

It's the only way to be sure.

i'm a linux user on my desktop pc, I love all the geeky options of the N900, but in the end I use the N900 as a media device:

32Go + microSD + FM transmitter + native divx support + photo quality + stereo speaker + kickstand + lens cover + good battery autonomy

For me all these MEDIA features already justify the N900 to be the best entertainment device available (and I would need MORE than 48Go to put my music only), better than the coming HTCs or the just-annouced Dell phones. And people seem to forget that they won't find these options in other phones, for me they are a lot more useful than a 4.3 screen or a 1Gz snapdragon

And when you add the OS and the geeky side, I don't see any upcoming competition

Ok, I haven't had another OS and you have zillions of phones so you can compare better than I. I'm just pointing out that someone complaining about lack of interest in their N900 hasn't tried one thing that might make them more interested. Of course, people who want to be bored should ignore the suggestion.

Actually that's quite impressive he was perfectly happy only using it for basic things. It means the UI is simple, the phone reliable. The tweakability factor is a bonus (and yes, I'm a tinkerer!)