When news of a Nokia smart phone running anything but Symbian rears its head, we tend to take it with a rather large (read: Everest sized) pinch of salt. Nokia themselves have even stepped in recently to rubbish rumours they were working on an Android phone. But, when said rumour is accompanied by some rather official looking spy shots and even a semi unboxing, people sit up and take notice. So what is it that’s pricked our ears? Just the small matter of the Nokia N900 running on the Maemo 5 Linux operating system, that’s all. Intrigued? Then read on as we take a look at what could be a pivotal moment for Nokia…

This isn’t the first time we’ve caught wind of the N900. Back in June we were duped by a possible leak from a Nokia Nseries presentation that later turned out to be a student led art project. And going back further than that the N900 has been name checked on several credible blogs and tech sites though always accompanied by a mock up rather than genuine photos. But this could finally be the finished product, also known as the the Rover and RX-51, with the N900 tipped to be officially unveiled at the end of the summer (this month!?!). But enough gushing about where it came from or what it’s called, we want to know what the N900′s packing inside.

Well, as we can see from the images, the N900 features a 3.5 inch touch screen (apparently resistive) with a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out ala’ the N97 though this time without the arced slide mechanism though we do get an N96/ W995 style kick stand. The N900 will also rival the N97 in the camera and memory stakes with a 5.0 Megapixel camera and 32GB internal memory. Elsewhere the N900 will, if the leaked specs are to be believed, include GPS, an FM transmitter (as seen on the LG Arena and upcoming BL40 Chocolate), Wi-Fi and an impressive 1GHz processor that crushes the current smart phone heavy weights and should provide a fast and fluid user experience.

Sounds good, but the most intriguing feature of all has to be the operating system. Nokia have stuck by Symbian through good times and bad; they needed to having invested a lot of time and money into the platform. So the news that the N900 (Rover/ RX-51/ whatever-you-wanna-call-it) will run on the Linux based Maemo platform has come as a shock. Nokia aren’t new to Mameo though, they’ve been using it in their range of internet tablets for some time. So is the N900 a sign that Nokia is accepting the limitations of Symbian on a touchscreen phone? Will this see a spin off of the Ovi store for Maemo apps? Or is it all total hogwash with the N900 packing Symbian OS? Who knows, bust rest assured, as soon as we do you will.