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Long sides: Stupid. Where are you going to hold the phone?

The return of Side Talking!

Actually, they say it'll support 3G and voice chat. And you know what that means: SIDETALKIN', the feature all other phones envy!

Basically, while Android and iOS won't necessarily disappear from the games market over night, it's lights out for them as serious competitors in the phone arena.

Don't be hating. NGage 4 lyfe!

Oh, wait. You mentioned "good gaming", didn't you...

> The entire point of VoIP on an iPad is
> to make it into a hilariously gigantic phone.

I don't think the N-Gage is going to let go of that title so easily...

Well, if you have software on your $400 laptop that can do the digital to analog / analog to digital just like you say, the solution is clear: hold one laptop up to each ear.

Gee thanks, now I have a terrible vision of a whole new level of sidetalkin ;-)

The device looks like a prime candidate for sidetalking, at least to me.

As the linked site has said for some time, "Sidetalkin' is [already] a history"; it was replaced with a more conventional front-mounted microphone on the second-generation N-Gages that came out not long after the originals.

BTW, love the scaled down version of that really bad clipart.

Sidetalkin.com rules! :-)

Nooo, do not say it looks like 2010 will be the end of sidetalkin'!!1!

With a bit of luck we could be back in the days of sidetalkin!

And as far as missing items, where the HELL is the sidetalker? The original N-Gage belongs on this list more than half the items listed.

Some people liked sidetalkin', you know...

...but only if they bring back Side Talkin'.

They *did* fix that problem, you know? The N-Gage QD added an actual card slot, did away with side-talkin', smoothed out the look, and dropped the price substantially. (I've heard of several people who managed to be at the right place at the right time to get their N-Gages for almost nothing.)

The real problem is that the concept was ill-advised to begin with. There's no real evidence to suggest that consumers want their gaming devices combined with their cell phones. Even worse, the portable gaming market has a high percentage of younger adults and children who are even less interested in getting an overpriced phone for gaming. To top things off, the N-Gage was graphically underpowered from day #1. It wasn't quite as bad as the Game.com (pronounced "Game Comm"), but games like Tomb Raider pushed its 3D capabilities to the limit. Nokia also failed to follow up with a more powerful device after the introduction of the Nintendo DS.

As if things weren't bad enough, Nokia never knew how to market the thing. They kept trying to sell it as a phone rather than a game system. (On the few rare occasions that they even promoted it.) In result, the market ignored them.

Nokia should really just stop with the N-Gage and look at improving the controls on regular phones instead. Cell phone gaming is absolutely horrendous at the moment, yet no one in the market seems to be doing anything to fix it. Go figure.

Can I talk on it while holding the PSP sideways?

When I upgrade my work computer it will be to Ubuntu and my gameing rig to an DS and PSP duct taped together back to back.

For whatever reason, that last part made me think of Sidetalkin'... specifically, this image (harmless link, just re-hosted out of respect to the Sidetalkin' site).

Dang website redirects to the homepage. Try this one.

Apparently you've never heard of Side Talking.

But does it feature sidetalkin

But will it side talk?

An iPod that is a phone *will* get attention.

I dont know about you but this doesn't look like a camera phone to me

I don't know....it looks like it could be a new N-Gage. I mean, in that picture, it kinda does look like he's Sidetalkin

After the smashing success of the NGage, Nokia couldn't help but go after the one manufacturer that owns its market more than Nintendo owns portable game systems. I see nothing but success in their future, and -- god willing -- the triumphant return of sidetalkin'.

You're going to look pretty stupid holding that up to the side of your head to talk, though, don't you think?

Since when has that stopped anyone?

The N-Gage is dead to me until they bring back sidetalking How could they get rid of such a great feature?

The only complaint I have is the "elephant ear" type use when talking.

I believe it's referred to as side talkin'.

Please, for the love of god, let's not turn this into an N-Gage joke.

shitty site, but the Sidetalkin Gallery is great!

The best innovation in human usability

http://www.sidetalkin.com/

i guess it's not completely unrelated to the bad results of this cellphone

here're some animals:
http://www.sidetalkin.com/page-animals.html

Or at least bring back the original model's best feature.

Obviously, it's future is in doubt due to the fatuous elimination of its greatest feature--sidetalking.

More information here (a Nokia ad can be downloaded from the same site).

Can the Ipod Cell Phone be far behind? If so, they should bring back sidetalkin'.

Changes in the system's general design go a long way to making the N-Gage QD a more attractive offering.

Or even more stylish, like a good friend of mine...

Or even more stylish, like a good friend of mine...

Although this entire topic is really silly speculation, I have to thank the original poster for making me 3 clicks away from this. Click "Look Ridiculous"->"View the...Pictures"->"Page Ladies" And scroll about 4/5 of the way down... http://www.sidetalkin.com/Images-Girl/sidetalking- holland.jpg Thanks again...

How farken funny are those sidetalkin photos.

Everyone check them out http://www.sidetalkin.com/photos.html

arguing that the mobile phone is the primary convergence point for digital devices and will soon cause iPod sales to evaporate

Because that just worked so well for the n-gage.

The only problem was the excessive amount of sidetalkin' involved in using it as a phone. And the fact that you had to take the battery out to change games.

That's because you're missing the point that Nokia's trying to get across: The N-Gage isn't a cell phone that plays games, it's a game system that uses the cell network for multiplayer online gaming. It happens to be a cell phone as well.

Nokia addressed the poor design of the original N-Gage with the release of the N-Gage QD at E3 this year. No more sidetalking (or "ear taco" as their own marketing people called it), and you don't have to remove the battery to change games.

They've also created an XBox Live-alike called N-Gage Arena to facilitate online play.

As it stands, I don't see the N-Gage QD succeeding unless they price it as attractively as they're planning (US$99). It still suffers from the problem that it's a mediocre gaming system and a mediocre cell phone, and that is what is killing "convergence devices" as we see them today.

One of the main things driving mobile phone sales is, of course, fashion. Especially among the younger consumers.

And the problem with most of these crossover devices is that they are Huge.

I know a few people with these Nokias and these T-mobile-thingies, and they just look ridiculous.

Now look at Japan.

As soon as we have normal-sized phones that do all the e-communicating and surfing we normally use our computers for, without looking stupid, then we'll see them replace PDAs for most people.

Well, damn! Whenever there was any mention of the N-gage, I'd always bring up that Sidetalkin site and get modded to infinity, but now that people can backtalk, what's the frigging use? Excuse me while I crawl up into a ball and cry for a while; my social life as I know it is now over.

In the future games will be totally portable and totally sidetalkin'!

...in order to Sidetalk, but then I'd probably put it back down again.

Better conclusion: everybody wants to try out Sidetalkin'.

Nokia removed the ONLY reason to own an N-Gage, which was to go out and do some Sidetalkin'!

I mean really, with the QD, all you're left with is a fairly generic phone that plays games on a tiny screen.

Thats exactly what i thought at first. When i switched cell companies i wanted a nokia phone because i like their UI, and i wanted a color screen too. Unfortunatly i couldn't find any with out wacky buttons. Ended up getting a nice LG flip phone. But yeah, i prefer my cal buttons as roughly rectangles and arranged at roughly 90 degree angles. Could be worse though, at least the thing doesn't look like a football or a taco.

omg omg omg. That better not ruin the totally new hip sidetalkin style!!!!!!!111oneone

I mean, I'm like totally sidetalkin', and this bums me out.