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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.
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.
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.
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.
Mod point free since 2001
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
... 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.
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.
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.