I have a black 64GB N9, and I have been pretty meticulous with how I take care of it (even as going as far as stock PR1.3 sometimes, just so it would work), especially with the USB/microSIM covers. Managed to make a tiny dent on the screen, but that's far from me now.

That being said, I use the N9 mostly as a music player/dumbphone. Except for the occasional apps (ebook reader, screenshot apps,a twitter client and some others), I'm pretty much well fed with it.

(Of course, the lack of apps is both an advantage and a weakness - good thing I have the Nexus 7 to satiate it a bit. It is also weird because since I got the N9, I used my Nexus 7 lesser.)

It is a good phone, voice calls, and SMS-wise. As for writing apps and GPS and email, I can't comment on that. (No experience/don't use it as much) Oh, and btw, my battery actually lasts more than a day; I only get OCD and charge it every night. If you chmod -x SmartSearch, then it also helps with the battery life.

It has the stock best Feed reader integration IMO. The stock web browser isn't the best, but it is good enough for casual web browsing. Oh, did I mention the multitasking? There's just a lot of things to love (and hate, but love again) with the N9.

P.S. Have only used 12GB of the 57GB of my N9