I have been bitten by the fake.
There was an actually 100% fake N900 with a TV tuner and I think ran midlets for software.
The real problem is the real N900 fake new, they refurb a crappy soldered together frankestein of junked N900s.
I ordered one or two years ago and the memory chip had crapped out on both in a few weeks.
Just remembered I bought one from a formerly well known, but ran off with a good amount of prepay money, TMO member and after months of non-delivery he sent me a Chinese real but refurb within a few weeks and paypal made me re-pay him for it. What a mess.

Anyways I recall the sign it is a refurb is the box has no spacebar on the impression of the open N900, just more little keyboard buttons.