Seems Elop is REALLY hated now on this forum by almost everyone.

Oh well let's hope he is fired when the board realise just what damage he has actually done to what could have been a surviving company with a few problems now turned bad enough to actually sink them, maybe this is his plan?.

or totally uncompetitive worker costs of the Finland manufacturing plants.

I bet the case is as follows:

Nokia board of directors have been gathering for Friday sauna since late 2008 and after the N900 was released in 2009 they started reading up on TMO, just for kicks and giggles. It didn't take long before they discovered several members complaining about the tablet, about it not being a true IT. They were greatly amused by this, as the N900 was obviously an internet tablet with the additional phone functionality. One thing that they were particularly amused by was users who didn't even own the device, who still ranted on and on about how flawed, overpriced, under-speced and bulky it was etc.

Then came 2011. When the first hands on's of the newly announced successor of the N900, namely the N9, started going around the internets with nothing short of glowing first impressions, the board got a little bit uncomfortable. "If the whiners and complainers buy the N9, and are happy about the product, what happens to our Friday sauna-lolz?": they said. This is when they came up with the pricing of the N9. "There we go! Too expensive for the trolls! Now our Friday saunas are safe, FOREVER!!"

I bet the case is as follows:

Nokia board of directors have been gathering for Friday sauna since late 2008 and after the N900 was released in 2009 they started reading up on TMO, just for kicks and giggles. It didn't take long before they discovered several members complaining about the tablet, about it not being a true IT. They were greatly amused by this, as the N900 was obviously an internet tablet with the additional phone functionality. One thing that they were particularly amused by was users who didn't even own the device, who still ranted on and on about how flawed, overpriced, under-speced and bulky it was etc.

Then came 2011. When the first hands on's of the newly announced successor of the N900, namely the N9, started going around the internets with nothing short of glowing first impressions, the board got a little bit uncomfortable. "If the whiners and complainers buy the N9, and are happy about the product, what happens to our Friday sauna-lolz?": they said. This is when they came up with the pricing of the N9. "There we go! Too expensive for the trolls! Now our Friday saunas are safe, FOREVER!!"

ofcourse you can cut prices by manufactoring in China or other lowprice countrys where the workers is payed half or even lower salary.

Question is if thats good for European and US as countrys in the long run!?

Those price comparisions should deal with those facts too..

huh?? what does software optimization have anything to do with what I mentioned? I mentioned nothing of performance, only manufacturing components.
eg A dual core processor COSTS more than an older single core processor unless I'm mistaken

Where are the N9's being made? Surely not in Finland... probably not even in Europe. Certainly not while good ol' sh*t-eating grinning ex-Microsoft Canadian Elop's in charge.

They have a huge network of plants all over Asia, South America, & some in EU.
Their manufacturing is not all done in Finland, far from it...
There was a map a fews back on one of the news sites, CBF'd digging it up.
But most of the points you made were solid, just thought I'd point this out though.

AFAIK most of the phones made by Nokia is done in european. And not Asia like many of the ANdroid phones.

Where are the N9's being made? Surely not in Finland... probably not even in Europe. Certainly not while good ol' sh*t-eating grinning ex-Microsoft Canadian Elop's in charge.