So in my eternal delima about the N900 I decided I'd try something completely different so stalked myself down a 5530 here's my thoughts on having lived with it for a few days:

Size :
forgot what it's like to have a phone and not know wich pocket it's in

Screen:
really do feel cramped.. I think this is more of a resolution thing that size strictly.
n900 screen seems to be a lot mroe readable in daylight? is this by design?

Keyboard:
oddly been getting on ok with the on screen keyboard, not as fast as on the physical one, but close.. only problem is you have to look..

Out and about, and in the car:
voice dialing and caller announce.. oh how i've missed you both!
miss my radio transmitter

Messaging:
hard to go back to non threaded, and non integrated msn..
mms about as good as fmms i reckon.

Camera:
Dreadful. but have realised it doesn't matter too much

Exchange:
Well it works well enough, to see what you're doing, but not for doing anything..

Battery:
More than a day..

Not 3G:
Seem to have wifi a lot more than i thought i did

Media:
Pretty much rubish.. well other than mp3s..

Web:
Pretty much useless.. for anything beyond mobile sites, but for those it's more than quick enough on edge.

Summary:
I think with the n900 I'd got pretty complacent, thinking of all the things it can't do, it's not untill i've switched back that i appreciate what it does do.
I've found myself resorting to the laptop a lot more so maybe it really is fullfilling it's role as a mini computer!
I've also found that not having my n900 with me to install pr1.2 on while i should be revisinf for exams is very hadny!

Just goes to prove the n900 is a computer first then mobile phone!

I still miss my se k800i - great phone and great camera (produces better images than n900 because of better flash).

But my n900 is invaluable to me so the compromise is worth it.

Interestingly I've just had to revert to my old n80 for the past 5 days since my poor n900 fell down the loo... The n80 was my favorite phone before I got the n900 but at teh end of the day it is only a phone with some media capabilities whereas not having the n900 made me realize how much I was using it as a mini PC - email, browsing, music player, gpodder, pannucci, calender etc etc etc. I think the 2 things that the n80 made me realize I really missed were one handed operation with the numeric keypad and bettery life - only needed to charge twice in 5 days and that's on a battery that is well old... Anyway, my shiny new n900 has just finished downloading and installing PR1.2 so off to see how that pans out For all those who really think the n900 is rubbish try going back to your old phone for a while and see how you get on

Is it that much of a difference?

N900 has a transreflective screen - by which it has in really silly terms like a one-way mirror behind it. When backlit, it works like a normal TFT. When forward-lit, a part of the light is reflected back to the TFT, making it a passive LCD, like those in watches. The more light you give it, the more gets reflected.

It's not what really happens, but as an end-result N900 is always visible, even in direct sunlight. This was one of its selling points for me, I noticed many people didn't notice it in the specs.

N900 has caller announce via espeakcaller, which is even better than the Symbian because it has per-contact language. Finally, it speaks names correctly.

You forgot the tagging/geotagging. Does the S60 have it, or you never use it? I do quite a bit, because it writes down GPS coords in EXIF

I noticed the reverse. In a whole month I used the laptop just twice, once for Word/Excel and one to charge my N900.

I'm not using my laptop much anymore since I got my N900, cause I can do almost everything on it.

Indeed I have been tagging, not that i've found what to do with those tags yet..
It's probably about half the volume i reckon, the n900 is made bigger of course being in a case. just so it's nice and protected..
oh and no GPS in the 5530, but i hardly use it, there's not much that's location aware..

I went to my E63 for day sometime ago. It was slow as hell and when I used it, I thought it was snappy

I'm on Windows so I have a different view on things than a Linux desktop, however, tagging achieves the following:

* Tags are written to EXIF, so are directly usable by OS APIs, making them universal in all editing software.

* You can sort, group, manage by tags.

* You can modify, add, delete, manage tags by OS and they will be respected back on N900.

* You can get your tags indexed by Windows 7 native library daemons, so the libraries and all associated software like media browsers can have subsets based on tags.

* You can customize both your PC and N900 viewing experience by grouping by tags. If you want to have private and personal images, tag them differently and then browse by tags when showing off your N900.

* With enough order, tagging can almost replace notes and folders, so a failing memory can be jogged. E.g., Greece, New Year, 2003 are valid tags and immediately bring an image into context.

Each tagging interface is limited (N900 can's sort by "cars" but "not mine"), while the PC has its own limits (W7 doesn't have native GPS Coordinates support and refuses to modify EXIF unless it understands it - which is good, but you can't e.g. rotate images via right-click)

They're fun. I also use them as a cross-filing system, avoiding duplicates. For example, folders are categorized by person, and tags by place and date. This would normally require copies of the image in both the user's pile and the event's pile. Tagging allows a comfortable structure while keeping all details.

I sound like I'm selling the stuff.

I didn't know that. Awesome.