Hacking The N-Gage - SideTalkin' To BackTalkin'

ceemrl writes "All About N-Gage have the scoop on ending the silly-looking phone side-talkin' required if you own an original Nokia N-Gage game deck/phone, with a neat hardware hack." Amusingly, the hack involves: "Taking a 3mm drill bit and very carefully working through [the back of the N-Gage near the phone speaker housing] until you break through the plastic", and the authors note: "As long as you didn't damage the speaker when drilling, the sound should be a similar level to side talkin'."

Comments

Reviews of the N-Gage

[Landaras]

"Taking a 3mm drill bit and very carefully working through [the back of the N-Gage near the phone speaker housing] until you break through the plastic"

They misspelled "with extreme prejudice and a priest on hand."

Re:Reviews of the N-Gage

[Anonymous Coward]

They misspelled "with extreme prejudice and a priest on hand."

Don't forget the silver drill-bit!

A good dousing with holy water might help, too...

Re:Reviews of the N-Gage

[Ayaress]

Nah. I think Purification by the Flame would be best in this case.

There goes my karma

[Txiasaeia]

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.

Re:There goes my karma

[TonkaTown]

Given that anyone who'd ever *really* used an N-Gage knew that sidetalkin wasn't really a problem, I used to find the so-called humour not funny at all. So it's nice to see that "joke" has been skewered.

Maybe we can now get Slashdot to understand mobile tech a little, and get rid of nonsense like people thinking WiFi is going to kill Bluetooth (hint: it's like comparing a motorbike with jumbo jet).

Re:There goes my karma

[Anonymous Coward]

That, sir, is teh funniest site on the intarweb.

Re:There goes my karma

[Mr.Dippy]

Dude, your karma is safe. It's not like Nokia made a 5 dollar fix to the phone that you could buy at any phone retail outlet. You HAVE TO DRILL THE DAMN THING. This is on the level of "damn my computer is running to hot. I need to make full holes in the case with a sledge hammer to cool it down." So don't worry, Side talk away.

Re:There goes my karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Your social life ended a long time ago, my friend.

Yeah

[Foo2rama]

No offense... I like nokia.. but 17 games out, a few games in developement on their home page cancelled. And a replacement on the horizon... If you listen carefully you can here the giant sucking noise... but only if you sidetalk or mod for backtalk... hmm reartalk...

Re:Yeah

[TonkaTown]

Only 17 games?

You're not looking too hard, if you were to include any one of the emulators you'd be well into the 100s without trying. There's also plenty of native Symbian C++ and Java games from the smaller games houses that can't justify going the MMC route.

Also there's no "replacement on the horizon" (yet), the N-Gage QD is shipping in Europe now and in the US by the end of the month. It's not a replacement for the classic Taco though, Nokia have launched it as a complimentary product to create the start of an N-gage range.

Re:Yeah

[StocDred]

What's the range? "Suck" to "Suckier"?

Boggles the mind

[Lord_Dweomer]

Seriously, Nokia should have figured out fairly quickly that people didn't like looking like they were talking into a taco. So rather than try to start a whole "side talkin" fad, why didn't they just recognize the design flaw, and change it in the next version?

Re:Boggles the mind

[Omroth]

They did: the QD has no sideTalkin'.

Here it comes...

[superultra]

Well, damn!

Don't fret Txiasaeia, you just have to change karma mines. Try typoing two random words in response to any games.slashdot post and link them to a random PA cartoon. Sit back, and watch the karma check in.

Re:Here it comes...

[G-funk]

I suppose you guys don't know that for quite some time funny mods don't actually give you karma? But of course when some cranky cunt who doesn't like jokes mods it -1, Overrated to slap you and avoid any metamods, you still lose the point :)

They did exactly what you suggest.

[raygundan]

I do believe they did. The new N-Gage QD is a plain old front-talkin' phone. The n-gage.com site even cites the "non sidetalkin' design" as one of the features of the new version.

Perhaps I am being trolled, but hey... sometimes you gotta bite.

Re:They did exactly what you suggest.

[Lord_Dweomer]

Oh, my bad, thanks for pointing it out! Kudos to them for making that a selling point.

laugh it up

[WormholeFiend]

but in 50 years, my mint-still-in-original-shrink-wrap Ngage will be a hard-to-find collectible!

Re:laugh it up

[jkeyes]

woah woah woah, you're admitting IN A PUBLIC FORUM you bought an N-Gage?! You have more balls than me dude.

::stab, stab::

[Anonymous Coward]

Cart swapping also fixed

[sbszine]

Hey, they fixed the game switching process too -- the carts hot swap in a top mounted slot in the new model.

Now all they need are games... and a marketing department that has never heard of 'xtreme' sports.