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Nokia tries again with new N-Gage
Wednesday, April 14 2004
by Ralph Averbuch


Mobile phone maker Nokia has officially announced its second
crack at the handheld gaming market with the launch of N-Gage
QD.

The new phone follows on the heels of the original N-Gage,
Nokia's first attempt to marry a handheld video games console
and a mobile phone. When launched in October 2003, the
ill-fated N-Gage met with harsh reviews that slammed
seemingly obvious design flaws. Such criticism helped lead to
lacklustre sales, despite substantial marketing spend. 



But in N-Gage QD, Nokia has addressed many of the complaints
levelled against the N-Gage. Among the improvements is a
change in position of the phone's microphone and speaker from
the side edge of the phone to the front, which means the
phone can be held to the ear in a more traditional manner,
rather than the so-called "side talking" manner that the
old layout required. 



Another important upgrade is a "hot-swap" facility that
will allow users to switch between MMC game cartridges
without powering down the phone and removing the device's
back cover and battery. The arduous procedures involved in
switching games on the original N-Gage was one of the most
criticised aspects of the phone. 



Another plus for the new N-Gage QD is its expected low price
point when it launches in May in Europe, Africa and Asia (and
June in the Americas). Nokia says that it expects the phone
to retail for EUR99 with a contract and EUR199 (excluding VAT
and other taxes) without a contract and excluding any
additional subsidy that operators may offer.  



"After six months on the market with the N-Gage platform,
we wanted to expand our device portfolio based on the
feedback we've received," said Nokia's senior vice president
of games, Ilkka Raiskinen. "With improved gaming
ergonomics, gamers can now start to play games at the push of
a button and enjoy the increased responsiveness of the game
keys. We also added support for hot-swap MMC and extended the
battery life. For phone calls, we reoriented the speaker and
microphone to support 'classic talking'." 



 

Other upgrades to the N-Gage QD involve a new layout and more
games-related buttons. Like its predecessor, the phone comes
with Bluetooth, Java (J2ME) games and it runs on Nokia's
Symbian-based Series 60 operating system. A handful of other
design changes and improvements include rubberised buttons, a
slightly smaller size and enhanced screen brightness. 



But some of the changes have come at a cost. For N-Gage QD,
the company has dropped the FM radio that was included in the
original N-Gage and it has also canned the phone's MP3
playback software. The decision to take away much of the
phone's music functionality is likely to have prompted the
decision to cut out the USB connectivity that was part of the
original N-Gage.