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N-Gage QD Review - No More Side-Talkin'
jasoncart writes "After the apparently poor uptake, and questionable design of the original N-Gage, have Nokia taken the hint when designing the next model - the N-Gage QD? Ferrago has a hands-on review."
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What was wrong with the original? Doesn't everyone like looking like they're talking into a taco?
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
I will never buy a gaming system as a cell phone. The screen sizes and device sizes for the two devices are mutually exclusive. Give me an mp3 player in my nokia 8260 sized phone or don't bother.
Now it looks like you're talking into a hot pocket.
Now and then N-Gage jwarez appears on p2p networks. So do they really profit or are most users pirating the games?
Well, at least they weren't sucked into the (proprietary) GNU/Debina hype.
They could realize no one wants to shell out that much money for a cell phone with PC games when they can pay for a game boy designed for mobile games, and not only that, one could warez game boy games.
Another games reviewer here. Got mine yesterday morning from the lovely PR people. It's a much nicer bit of kit than the original - almost all the design flaws are sorted and fixed, and there appears to be a wave of halfdecent games on the way.
I wrote a postmortem of the original N-Gage [google cache] which details what the QD fixes - I would add though that the QD is by no means a 'small' phone, it's almost the width of an old Nokia 1610!
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
Is Nokia just stubborn? There is no way there little thing stands a chance, even with this "revision". It's time to cut their losses.
I just want a small simple phone that does phone calls and text messages. MP3 playback is good but my MP3 player does that better and cheaper. While the N-Gage looks quite cool its not going to fit in your pocket that easily. I'm going to keep my gaming to PC's for now. When they can invent a phone with a 19" screen, 3D accelleration, a mouse and a keyboard that fits in your pocket easily, I'll buy it.
having to take out the battery to change carts. Ill probly pick one up when they hit 100 bucks or so
Nokia lost it's chance with both Nintendo and Sony having shown their offerings and strutted their stuff who will even care for an updated design to the N-Gage?
Not many considering the only time gamers really talk about it is how cool "it could have been" and how ugly it is. Making it less ugly doesn't increase it's chances in a market which since the original's launch is clearly going to see some strong competition in the "high-end" portable gaming market.
Something intelligent here.
So would I , if I'd ever have actuallly seen somebody buy one.
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I will buy this kind of mixed system when Nintendo includes a cell phone in GBA.
As a GBA SP owner I was really underwhelmed by QD as a gaming machine (I tried about half a dozen games). - Both by quality and by LOADING TIMES (up to 30 seconds before you can start playing)! However, for the price, I think this is really useful phone for people who want to surf wap/WWW and send/receive e-mails. And have cool ringphones. :) I would be happiest if it was a little bit smaller and without the cartridge-based games capability. Also, you cannot connect it directly to computer and it doesn't have IR port. So if you want to transfer data from/to it, you must do it using Bluetooth or internet.
--- Frantisek Fuka (Yes, that's my real name and you have no idea how it's pronounced)
but why oh why can't they simplyfy the button layout for gaming? It's still a bitch to hit just the buttons you want. Would it be so hard to have a couple of buttons separated out or stuck out a bit more? I still don't really like the aspect ratio. It's not well suited for platformers or rpgs (but I'd love to see some horizontal shooters on it :).
I remember nintendo saying they we're leaving 3D more or less out of the GBA because it's not well suited for small screens. That may not be entirely true, but I do think it's a bad idea to try and make a 3D portable console without consideration for the small screen size. They should take more advantage of the small size to 'cheat'. Take a look At King of Fighters R2 for the Gameboy advance. Could they really squeeze all of KOF2001 (more or less what it's based on) onto a 16 MB game boy cartidge? No of cousre not, but because everything is so small and low res, they can cut down on the detail in the sprites and it still looks good, because you're eye won't miss the details that much anyway.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
While it is good news that Nokia finally got rid of that anoying problem with having to take out the battery to change games, but for any serious gamer it would be best to wait for the Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP. The NGage, trying to do so many things (mp3 player, game player, phone) cannot hope to do as well as something that is designed from top to bottom for games. Also, as Nokia has no prior work with gaming (other than the previous NGage) they do not have the funementals of a good game system down. Also, they have very lackluster support from third party developers.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
I was really impressed by the first version until I found out about having to remove the battery to change games. Then when the QD came out I was disappointed that they had dropped MP3 support.
Looks like I won't be getting a Nokia N-Gage this time round either and will happily wait for the Nintendo DS. Now if only the DS supported Java we would have ALOT of open source source software on a decent device! VOIP perhaps?
I've seen this thing and the original in action and the improvement is vast. It make you wonder what the hell Nokia was thinking when they didn't do this the first time around and I'd definitely consider one if they got some decent games on it. You can have all the hardware in the world but it's worthless without software support which the N-Gage is horribly lacking in.
I think the NGage suffers from the same problems of convergence as PDA phones and probably limits itself to a similar, albeit smaller, market slice. Meaning, the people who buy PDA phones are those who would like to have both features but aren't particularly tied to the bonuses that the individual products can provide.
I think PDA phones have it better in that the features provided are easier to do and less likely tot leave you wanting a stand alone device. Consider the gaming mentality though, gamers want faster, better graphics and more options. I definitely think this convergence device will (and has) have a hard time catering to that crowd.
So in follow up, can Nokia maintain the product with such a small market segment? Considering the price of development (anyone know what royalties Nokia is tossing out?) I doubt they can maintain any sort of decent game library.
--AlphaDecay
Personally, I have to say that I didn't really like it very much. For starters, the QD is huge. At least compared to modern cell phones. My current phone, which I could play Java games on, easily fits in the palm of my hand. I routinely carry it in my shirt pocket because it's so small and light. Talking on the QD, on the other hand, you kinda look like you took your cordless phone from home to impress bystanders. And it's just too bulky too suit me.
The other thing I didn't like was a more fundamental flaw. In my opinion, the QD just tries to be too much, and consequently is bound to fail. It doesn't work very well as a phone and it's not all that impressive as a mobile gaming platform. I mean there's not much of a notable difference between the QD and a $50 Gameboy Color as far as graphics and sound are concerned. And the gameboy a lot more good games going for it.
The QD could be a really interesting product if they used the synergy effects created by merging a phone with a mobile game system. For instance, Bluetooth would be a great, albeit power-consuming, way to implement multiplayer games. The same goes for location-based or WAP stuff.
Sorry, but so far I am not really impressed.
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... I am a little sceptic to the new design.
Yep, I'm using an NGage. Not because of the gaming stuff (which does increase the gadget value) but because it has a lot of nice features and was cheap to buy. It works both in Europe and the US, it's got Bluetooth and runs Symbian applications. Most of all, I really appreciate the radio function and being able to record songs I like when I hear them.
Though I also find it funny, I have never experienced the "Dumbo effect". The phone comes with a nice handsfree and if that's not cool enough, you can always go for a Bluetooth headset.
Personally, I wouldn't buy the new phone and I think Nokia is shooting themselves in the foot beleiving people will buy a phone only for the gaming capabilities.
As a phone alone, it is very nice, maybe a bit large, but the added functionality that symbian gives it might be worth it. The problem is still the game selection, who cares how cool the hardware is without any games?
Who else thinks that its a bad idea to have the keypad aligned horizontally instead of vertically. The way they have it you have to hold it like a game console to make a phone call, which makes it difficult to do while youre doing something else, and just a pain even during normal use. I know i would be irritated if i had to hold my phone with two hands whenever i dialed.
Was side-talking patented? If so that would be a brilliant example to show people stupid patenting laws, I only hope Nokia were just taking the piss when they put it on the feature list - surely it must have just been an internal joke, and maybe one of the engineers went and gave in a patent for a laugh? heh "back-side-talkin"?.. er.. no? Ok were screwed.
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now, let's place bets on how long it will take to port netBSD to it!
Even though N-Gage QD has it's own SDK, I find it terribly sad that it only supports MIDP 1.1 and not MIDP 2.0 (improvements between the versions are mostly game related). I'm currently developing apps with the 2.0 lib, and the lack of support for it is reason enough for me not to buy an N-Gage.
Sure, it's a great redesign... But all the system changes in the world won't change the fact that the games aren't worth it. Most are old, on other consoles, or just crappy.
It's a beautiful little device, and I really want wireless head to head gaming. I have a T610, though, and doubt that I would want to replace it with this as my cell phone.
Of course it's expensive enough to not be worth buying unless you do need it as a cell phone.
I wonder how many people will pass it up for this reason.
Game... blouses.
So they've now gotten to the point where the engineering and form factor on the N-Gage are mediocre, rather than just plain unacceptable.
Unfortunately, the engineering/formfactor issues were masking other problems with the N-Gage. Now that those are more or less past, there's the other problems to deal with. For example, the issues with the platform. Like the tiny and wierdly-shaped screen. Or the performance, which from what I have heard is not fantastic (reports were that the framerates on Tomb Raider, not the world's most complicated game, were noticeably poor). Or the very, very anemic game library.
And you've got to pay extra for this incredibly lackluster functionality. While meanwhile, at this point, you can get a combination PDA and cellphone running PalmOS and get a gaming machine that's an order of magnitude more attractive.
In my totally unprofessional opinion, Nokia should give up on the idea that they're going to have a dedicated-for-gaming cellphone and just concentrate on improving the state of games for J2SE phones in general.
The original Sidetalking! website has started a petition to bring back the most hilariously awful feature in their phones yet.
R.I.P. sidetalking...
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i have one of the one step down models (the mp3 playing ones) but have also used the n-gage and despite them being pretty clunky the side talking thing is just a stupid internet craze...you can use them like normal phones and it works fine..honestly
still i guess a more ergonomic design should be encouraged
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.
*****The QD could be a really interesting product if they used the synergy effects created by merging a phone with a mobile game system. For instance, Bluetooth would be a great, albeit power-consuming, way to implement multiplayer games. The same goes for location-based or WAP stuff.*****
How can this guy even be a +1? Obviously he isn't even a real tester because if he's been playing a QD how can you miss the BLARRINGLY OBVIOUS MULTIPLAYER OPTION OVER BLUETOOTH
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
It may not be the perfect gaming machine, but I don't want to carry around a laptop or GB all the time. When I wait in line for lazy government and large corporate employees to do their do nothing job I can play. Just think you can play a game while you wait in line at the post office and such. Pushing a dolly and having a GBA, Cell, and MP3 player is just too much. They have a niche market and they are going to keep it for a while. Plus anyone that knows J2ME can make games for it for free. Just look at how much it cost for a GBA dev kit. Plus the API is more complicated that J2ME.
Not sure why anyone would want to get an N-Gage. A better convergence device (IMO) is the Tapwave Zodiac (http://www.tapwave.com). It's a full-blown PalmOS 5.2 device with a 3.8 inch screen and runs thousands of PalmOS apps, in addition to a growing number of Zodiac-optimized games. And with built-in bluetooth, you can check your email or do light websurfing via a bluetooth enabled cellphone. Check out Tapland (http://www.tapland.com) or some of the other PalmOS sites for details on this device -- it just became available in (US-) retail stores after being orderable from Tapwave's website only for the past eight months.
Although the model that was 4' wide and actually worked was kind of cool.
Whatever they did, it still looks like goatse!
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
I had the original unit in my hand for all of five minutes at a local game store and formed a list of complaints that closely matched the improvments made in the QD. I don't understand how a company could put out a product with such glaring faults, it's like Nokia never test marketed the product or asked the opinion of potential customers before finalizing the design.
Is it really that hard to get good information from focus groups? I have been in a two focus groups in the past. One involved laundry detergent, of all things, and the other concerned cell phone service. In both cases, I can recall that concerns or criticisms that were raised during our focus groups seemed to result in marketing or product changes (as compared to what was presented to us during the focus group). Most likely the companies involved heard the same issues raised in similar groups around the country and made changes.
Did Nokia not put their product into the hands of potential customers and ask, "What do you think?"
They did jam a lot into it, but there is absolutely no IR support on the N-Gage. There is also no 3D GPU -- it's all software rendering based around its main CPU, which is why it takes 144Mhz to do anything close to a PS1 level of graphics.
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There is already a much larger and higher-quality selection of Java games available for many more models of cell phone than the ill-fated N-Gage. There is also a much better choice of portage game devices to choose from. Trying to bring the mobile phone and gaming worlds together when it can't even compete with either is just a mistake waiting to be born.
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Troll???? you should get out more often, This mod makes me think of some kind of biased opinions going on in slashdot.
Red Faction for the NG was a big pile of suck. It was like RoTT, but with far worse graphics, no handling, and impossibly shitty graphics.
The N-Gage has no business running 3D games.
Sadly, the best parts of the N-Gage were removed from the QD. I listen to the radio a lot on mine, and use it for a lot of MP3s and other media (especially since I can't sync my iPod what with the sbp2 layer being broken in Linux 2.6). My friend bought a Motorola V600. My N-Gage has 1mb more device RAM, the MMC slot, and the movie/mp3/radio playback over top of his -- and it cost 400$ less. Although my N-Gage is only tri-band GSM (vs. his quad-band GSM), so my reception in North America isn't as hot as it could be in some places.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Red Faction for the NG was a big pile of suck. It was like RoTT, but with far worse graphics, no handling, and impossibly shitty graphics.
Rise of the Triad? Oooo... now there's an insult if I've ever heard one.
The N-Gage has no business running 3D games.
I can't say I disagree. Good 3D requires a hellva lot more than pushing a few polygons. At the very least, you'd need a bigger screen for a better FOV. And programming for a dinky 104MHz ARM? Reminds me of the days of RayCasters and home brew 3D engines. Ah, the memories.
Sadly, the best parts of the N-Gage were removed from the QD. I listen to the radio a lot on mine, and use it for a lot of MP3s and other media (especially since I can't sync my iPod what with the sbp2 layer being broken in Linux 2.6).
Do you really use it for Games that much, or do you like the N-Gage primarily for it's other features? If you just like an occasional Java game, then the Nokia 6800 series might be a better choice. Color screen, built-in radio, J2ME support, AND it flips open to reveal a full keyboard and joystick.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I didn't mind the idea of sidetalkin' on my phone. In fact, one of my biggest gripes about the treo 600 is that there's a good half-inch chunk of real estate on the front face that could be used for a larger screen or (god willing) some landscape-mode buttons if it weren't occupied by the speaker. Why not put it on the side? Or the back? Or anywhere but where you're trying to cram a screen and full keyboard.
I think the sidetalkin' hype has blinded Nokia to the major problem with the device-- namely, that it sucks for games. They did listen and fix the cart-swap issue. But they didn't do anything about the tall/narrow screen or the lousy game selection.
There's no way in hell I'd get a Nokia 6800 non-provider locked and non-subsidized for about 250$ CDN, or any other phone with a comparable feature set! The original N-Gage is a very attractive phone for this very reason.
The fact that it didn't do so well is an outgrowth of one simple fact: Nokia pissed off their target audience with their bullshit ads. Everyone was under the impression in was a shitty Gameboy with a cellphone involved (which is a more accurate description of the N-Gage QD).
If they had any sense, they'd realize there's a market for a featureful phone that's not 600$ CDN. I doubt we'll see that any time soon. My local cellphone place is still selling the Nokia 6100 (a monochrome phone with IrDA and Bluetooth, and nothing else) for more than the N-Gage costs -- you pay 240$ + tax + sign another 2 year contract. Horrible.
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