a) As far as my experience, Hulu works decently well while over WiFi, better if overclocked. I don't use Hulu that much, so I'll test it out a bit tomorrow and let you know. As far as radio goes, there are plenty of options available for streaming internet radio. The default media player can handle a few, and other, third-party applications can handle most. I'm not sure on Sirius specifically.

b) Applications for the N900 are currently based on fixing issues. For example, I have fMMS, which enables MMS capability. Another example would be my Enhanced Power Kernel, which allows me to overclock my N900 to 1GHz (no stability problems!) AND lower the voltage, increasing my battery life. Since the Maemo community is quite small, there isn't a huge number of developers focusing on the OS, but the ones that do are very dedicated (I get a notification for a new version of fMMS almost every week).

The standard browser has its flaws, definitely. There are other options, however. Opera is available, as is Chromium (community-supported version of Google Chrome) and a few others. I don't really have problems viewing sites on my N900's standard browser, though.

Virtually everything on the N900 is “unlocked” allowing some epic things. I've seen people put Mac OS X, Windows 7, and Windows Vista on it, to name a few. Some have even started experimenting with MeeGo.

I sincerely doubt the new iPhone will have 80GB of storage. The highest estimates I've seen are 64GB. And really, it doesn't matter, because MicroSD slots are full of win. SanDisk just announced the first 32GB cards

Lastly, keep in mind that the N900 is not the average user's phone. It comes from a pretty solid heritage of tablet computing (N770, N800, N810) and hasn't really deviated from there. All they did was add a SIM card slot for phone usage. It was never meant to be an iPhone-killer, or a top-of-the-line phone. It was meant to satisfy a relatively small group of enthusiasts who like tinkering with their mobile devices. The second you start thinking of the N900 as a phone is the second you become sorely disappointed. If you're looking for an easy-to-use phone that doesn't require you replacing and recoding kernels, coding your own scripts for overclocking, etc., then look more towards Symbian or Android, IMO.

I guess my only questions are a) how well the browser works with problematic flash streaming audio/video sites such as hulu and sirius. I am able to stream sirius radio with skyfire (hulu blocks skyfire), but I was curious if/how either works with the native browser on maemo (you can sign up for a free trial sirius subscrption). b) what the app selection is like, in general. Are there any good apps you have on your N97 that you can't find for maemo or the other way around?

I've also heard the N900 browser is also its weakness in that because it renders pages like a PC, you're going to spend a lot of time scrolling left and right to read what the native N97 and Opera browsers resize for a mobile screen.

Also, I saw a video online where someone loaded Android onto their N900. Not sure how well it works or if you want to be that daring with a phone you may want to turn around and sell, but the concept is pretty bad-assed.

I took a quick peek at the N8. Looks solid enough, but I don't like that it only has 16GB of internal storage. One of (if not the) key reasons I haven't switched to Android is because of its unmatched storage capacity. I hear the new iPhone is supposed to include 80GB (!!!) I still won't buy one, but I'm not sure why Nokia decided to take a step backwards in this regard.