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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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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.
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.
how many of the people who deride sidetalking have ever used it? or are they worried they will look like a dork? the big news is you are a dork if you care what you look like when talking into a phone! I use my N-gage both with hands free and on the side, and have found that sideways the width of the phone fits snugly into my ear which makes it very easy to hear in loud enviroments. As for hotswapping your MMC card there are successful mods to allow you to do it and I am sure more are to come, though now it has been proven that you can fit a 1 gig card in it is less likely to bother you.! gig can fit a lot of movies,games,mp3s,book and other apps.
...I obey the laws of physics....
Whatever they did, it still looks like goatse!
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