@Ben64

That's the price of the X6 without subsidies. The iPhone costs about the same, or actually a bit more without subsidies as well.

With operator subsidies, in Finland on Sonera's network for example, you can get the X6 for 21 EUR a month on a 2-year contract.

@(Unverified)
Nah, the operators in both Finland and the UK offer it for way cheaper on contract deals, if that's what you like. For example, Sonera in Finland has it for 21 EUR a month on a 2-year contract:
https://kauppa.sonera.fi/yksityisille/puhelin_ja_liittyma/puhelin.aspx?Mode=Subvention&Period=24&Installment=Monthly&PhoneKey=L273

That's pretty cheap on a monthly basis.

@surge,

Yes, but only on T-Mobile, because the N900 uses the AWS 1700Mhz frequency for 3G that only T-Mo offers in the US. On AT&T you can use the N900 on 2G and EDGE, which, in my opinion, doesn't suffice.

@yaniv.chokron,

I agree that $649 (or $510 at Amazon) is a bit of money, but I can't see the resistive touchscreen being the dealbreaker here. I think you need to try it out yourself first to see what you really think of it.

Also, the total price of, say, the Droid becomes well over $1100 when you count all the money you'll be paying for the phone over the 2-year contract with your operator. Because the N900 is an unlocked device unlike the Droid, or the iPhone, you only need to pay that $510 - $649 for it once, which, admittedly, hurts, and then you're done and you can use the phone on any GSM&HSPA operator you wish to choose at any time.

What Verizon, AT&T and T-Mo really do when they "subsidize" the price of the phone is that they set up an expensive lay away program for the customer, with a lock down to their service. I wish that more people in the States would realize that.

In Asia 85% of all phones are sold unlocked, and in Europe, 75%. But in North America, it's only 5% that are sold unlocked, while the rest are tied to operators. Is it that us North Americans just have less money to spend initially, or are we just too dumb to realize that we are, in fact, paying way more for our phones - it just doesn't look like that at first because the initial price is lower? How come operators can fool us so easily?

@Vux,

The N900 is a GSM and HSPA+ phone. Verizon operates a CDMA network, so the N900 won't work on Verizon at all. However, it works on T-Mobile 3G and 2G, and AT&T 2G and EDGE. If you want to make use of the full power of the device, you need to be on T-Mo.

Nokia has 68% share of the market in China, so I don't think it'd be a fair fight.

@Danny,
I ask the same question: have you not updated your N97 to FW 2.0 yet? It includes much improved memory handling for the device, and has made my phone the snappiest it's ever been. I also downloaded Opera Mobile 10 a couple hours ago, and from what I've tested, it's really impressively fast. So try it out!

With almost any operator, but especially with Rogers, I really wonder what the speeds are in reality. In Toronto, Rogers' 7Mbps HSPA is pretty good at best, and non-existent at worst. Just last night, 3G seemed to be down for an hour in downtown Toronto not just on my phone but everyone I talked with (3 ppl), and only had EDGE.

Plexus, are you maybe confusing carriers and device manufacturers? Do you mean that Scandinavian manufacturers, i.e. Sony Ericsson, not carriers, suck? I don't understand your comment.

@Plexus:
"And few carriers in the world suck as much as the scandinavian ones."

???
Can you elaborate?

For example, according to an OECD study that came out just a month ago, Finnish and Swedish (officially, Finland is not in Scandinavia but in the Nordics, but anyways... Sweden is) carriers charge their customers the _lowest_ fees in OECD countries, while carriers in the US, Canada and Spain are the most expensive. And 70% of phones in Scandinavia are sold unlocked, independent of a carrier, while in the US only 5%.

So what is that sucks about Scandinavian carriers? I'm not saying it can't be true, I just don't know what you mean. Based on what I know and what I experience, I would say few carriers in the world suck as much as the North American ones, and, sadly, the ones that I use, Canadians, are the worst of all.