I got sick of seeing the negative threads on the N900 lingering near the top of the forums, given my wonderful experience with it. So I figured I'd do something about it. This is not a review...just a ramble.

The N900 is amazing.

Seriously. It is. It's not just the linux geek in me saying that, either. Tonight I got a call from a friend on a new number, and the process of merging that information in to the existing contact was just very pleasant. Both from a UI perspective, and from a "function aesthetic" perspective (merging contacts and merging in disconnected numbers is done identically, which feels nice for some reason).

This is a tiny, but pleasant, feature. There are a host of them. I've had an android for the last year and the experience is ungodly-better on the n900. And I liked android.

"sudo gainroot," more for the philosophy than anything, makes me thrilled.

Thinking about the web-browsing experience on android makes my eyes bleed now that I've been using the n900 for a week or so. Ditto for the iphone.

Flash is a big deal. Flash9 is good, Flash10 would be better, but all in good time.

Tethering via USB w/ an Ubuntu machine is comically simple. Seriously. Plug it in. Connect to a new mobile broadband device in NetworkManager. Done. That's it. (Bluetooth tethering requires a tiny bit of work at present, but I'm sure that'll be fixed with an app soon enough).

The FM transmitter. Hot. Was in a friend's truck the other day, plopped it on his center console and we were good to go. No more planning, I just always have a transmitter.

FM tuner - simple, but awesome.

Camera is great. It can only get better.

That's all for now. There's more good stuff. Everything about the device is awesome. Pipe in with your favorite feature?

Oh right...and qik is amazing and impresses everyone

Yay - you make my day (as someone who gets his n900 in 5 days). Love the positivity.

N900 is a pretty cool guy, eh has ssh and doesn't afraid of anyone!


(Sopwith prepares to be lynched)

I'm making a video of my experiences as a newbie.

I'm in awe of this phone, simply in awe.

Thanks for this lovely review

I'm getting mine hopefully in a week or so and I know I'm going to love it.

I'm loving mine to, but can't complain too much considering I paid nothing for it won it at the developer event last Friday. Having said that, I'd have bought one as soon as I could anyway ;-)

On t-mobile 3g, connectivity is good at my place in San Diego, battery life is lackluster, but to be expected given everything the device is doing (and everything I do with it).

Looking forward to larger battery solutions.

I realize the device lacks some polish, but it's the *perfect* device for someone like me. I've been dreaming of a device this powerful since getting my first Zaurus back in 2002. How far things have come since then.

I'd say the device has met or exceeded all my expectations so far (though again I could always hope for more battery life).

Things will only get sweeter for devs/users as Maemo moves more fully to QT4 in my opinion.

hey go1dfish good to see you join us! I was at the event, too, presenting on behalf of this community. Hope you enjoy your device!

Oh yes, very much so Already got a little PyQt4 app I wrote last year ported to PySide/Maemo5 (a guitar scale fretboard diagram generator)

Will post it up as an example of a simple qt4 app supporting the desktop platforms and Maemo once I get it a little more documented.