I got the daughter an N8 as an upgrade at christmas, and I am quite pleased with it. Symbian 3 is a great improvement, but it is still obviously a phone first, and not a patch on maemo to be honest.

I would not jump to the E7 for a few reasons - EDOF camera, and no microSD slot, and limited internal memory are the main ones.

Looks damn lovely though...

I think that the E7 will be a 'good' phone, but fear it won't compete in the market out there right now. And while the N8 has a sexy camera, lots of people bemoan Symbian3 as the step forward from S60 that should've been a LEAP. And Maemo5, even with it's limitations probably would still be more enjoyable to use than Symbian3. For me, the bottom line is this: I'm sticking with my N900 until something of EQUAL quality comes out, which is more than likely going to be the N9 running Meego. And even then I'd wait until it was a proven unit before parting with my N900 and $$$.

I for one, is bored of maemo and meego, and got myself a Samsung wave with Bada. I will not call it a step up from the N900, but it is different. My wife got a N8 and to be honest Symbian3 is a step up from maemo5. The E7 looks nice, but it is not worth the steep price IMO.

I will stick with my Wave untill the N9 comes along. Then I will see if it has proper ovi integration. If it doesn't, I will get a Symbian phone or perhaps a WP7. But it has to have hw keyboard.

Also, when I say step backwards, I mean that unfortunately commercial US companies have decided to tunnel vision Android and iOS right now, and I am starting to want to use what they offer in the way of apps(more specifically apps that provide them with DRM).

It doesn't matter how nice the browser is, or how functional newer versions of Symbian will be, if it doesn't get DRM related apps. I understand why companies that I pay for services, want to control their content, it doesn't bother me so much, but by choosing to spend money on Symbian, I would be choosing to not have a phone that supports those services.

Hmmmm. The N900 still wins on lots of things. For example:

E7:
4" screen at 640x360

N900:
3.5" screen at 800x480

E7:
680MHz CPU

N900:
600 MHz (Stock speed) 1.5GHz if you're brave enough.

E7:
Maximum User Storage 350 MB
Mass Storage Memory 16 GB
NAND Memory 1 GB
SDRAM Memory 256 MB

N900:
* Up to 32 GB internal storage
* microSD memory card extension, hotswappable, up to 16 GB* (current availability)
* Total available application memory up to 1 GB (256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)

*Can now be increased to 32 GB. It may even be happy to take 64 GB, when they become available.

E7's browser doesn't look too impressive over the N900's either.

Think I'll stick with the 900 for now.

Oh, and probably by the time it's released Symbian will be closed source again.

Symbian is a no no for me. Even if it has improved, it's still a big pain in the *** to get anything done on it. It'd probably take me several months of programming and bashing against Symbian's antiquated OS to get access to my email account which is only accessible through openvpn, for example...

On maemo? apt-get install openvpn and copy over the openvpn file for my email account. 2 minutes.

Symbian makes me feel like as if I'm being treated like a 2 year old, getting locked up in a very small playpen with a squeaky ball as my only tool, and then neglected.
Atleast with Maemo I'm getting locked up and abandoned in McGyver's garage.

interesting about symbian 3, but i don't know how true though, is that i have read around in blogs that nokia has a plan of quarterly massively updating the OS and purportedly, will eventually have the smooth UX of a maemo and ios device.

i will have to wait and see first. but the fact that nokia has actual support and plans for symbian3 gets me pissed off about owning a maemo device.

symbian works for someone who just wants a simple phone with a few extra features.

Honestly, I would love one, I like Symbian. Problem is, it'll probably cost way more than it's worth, like most mobiles available today. Example, C6-01 on the UK store, since it's for some reason not available in the US store, is £279.00. That's about USD 370 for a phone with 3G and a terrible camera. That thing's worth maybe USD 275 or 300 max.

Aside from the memory cards, specs don't matter if it's not the same OS.

But Nokia are supporting Symbian3 for now. Remember it didn't take them too long to drop Maemo support. And while that is less of a problem because the Maemo community seem to be doing a better job at keeping things fresh than Nokia ever could've done, it makes me think that as soon as the E7 is out in the wild, a few months after that, E7 (and N8) owners will be frustrated because it's likely that Nokia will drop (or reduce) support for Symbian3 as they focus their attention on Meego. And because of the nature of Symbian (and that Nokia are in charge of it now) it could become a closed OS. No tweaks, no homemade apps.
While I'm sure Symbian3 is an improvement over S60, it can't be better than Maemo5. Just take this tiny example: on the E7 desktop, you are restricted as to where your widgets and shortcuts go, in 1 of 4 squares. Sure you can choose the square, but I can do whatever I want with my widgets and shortcuts on my (4, not 3!) Maemo homescreens! Just that alone makes me wonder just how un-customizable Symbian3 is compared to Maemo5.