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N-Gage QD Review - No More Side-Talkin'

Posted by timothy on from the mumble-louder-please dept.

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."

14 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. I won't buy this one either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  2. No new security? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  3. Lost the Advantage. by hethatishere · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Lost the Advantage. by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "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?"

      There's still a niche market. If I could get a cell phone that plays decent games for under $99, I'd consider it. Now that they've gotten some of the major issues out of the way, it might be worth another look.

      Would I sell my Game Boy Advance SP for it? Oh hell no. But I do enjoy the odd game on my cell phone from time to time. Why? For the simple reason that my phone goes with me everywhere. My Game Boy... well it sits around my apartment. Maybe I think to grab it if I know I'm gonna be waiting somewhere.

      So no, I don't agree that nobody will care. However, I'm not optimistic enough to think they could reach millions of units sold. They're going to have to figure something out to make it that popular. Maybe that'll happen? They have the whole wireless thing going for it. Multiplayer gaming could be cool. Who cares if only 10 thousand are on the market, nation wide, you can still find somebody to play against.

      The reality is that it's probably dead. Pity, they had some of the right things in place. One way or another, I do feel that cell phones will have more gaming capabilities down the road.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  4. Calling on my GBA by freeduke · · Score: 3, Interesting
    There is no way for me to buy a portable gaming system from a cell phone manufacturer: on their first attempt, they did not even know where to put the cartridge. That seems to anounce bad new for the upcoming games, anyway, they have got the solution: if it is useless, you can still call a hotline!

    I will buy this kind of mixed system when Nintendo includes a cell phone in GBA.

  5. Not good for a gamer by fuxoft · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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)

  6. I like the specs by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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/
  7. Brave attempt but no thanks by tonejava · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

  8. Nice phone/console by N3koFever · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  9. similar fate as PDA phones by AlphaDecay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

  10. Re:No matter how good it is I'm not getting one by MBCook · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I know what you mean. I'd like my cellphone to have games, personally, but not like the N-Gage. I want cheezy little versions of Tetris, Bejewelled, Snake, other other little things. They are supposed to be little diversions. But I DEFINATLY don't get making the phone a full console and expecting people to buy games for it, that just seems nuts. Even if they could make a GBA-Cellphone combo that worked out great, I don't think I'd buy one because that's not what I'm looking for in a cell phone.

    Convergence is OK, but the things have to make sense. I'm about as likely to that as I am a combination hairbrush/digital camera.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  11. It looks great by lewp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
  12. duh its an urban legend by The_reformant · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
  13. N-Gage QD Has a Niche by militiaMan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.