line of site

review: nokia n-gage

i first realized that gaming would take off on phones when i got my first nokia 8290 and played my first game of "snake". actually, it was a day later when i walked into the bathroom at work and heard the sounds of "snake" eminating from one of the stalls. "hmm, maybe there is something to games on phones as a timekiller."

ever since nokia announced the n-gage a combination game machine and phone, i was extemely intrigued. after reading a few initial reviews and hearing comments from colleagues that had tried them, i had written off the n-gage as a failure that i'd take a pass on. silly me, i should have known better. while walking through the local mall on release day (unbeknownst to me) i saw the stack of n-gage boxes out of the corner of my eye in the local electronics boutique, and well, 5 minutes later i was a proud owner.

of course the shop clerk was more than willing to promote it, but he actually seemed genuinely excited about the n-gage, and had tried it the night before (each store manager was given a promotional handset. lucky dogs) with nothing but good things to say. this young man, who best resembled a cross between jack black and the "comic book guy" from the simpsons, said "this is perhaps the coolest thing i've seen all year. the screen is amazing, and the call clarity is way better than my old handset, and if i could get a bluetooth headset..." well you get the picture. whomever paid for the free handset helped at least one sale. the n-gage is sold in north america in both t-mobile and att wireless versions, with an inactive sim that you can either activate, or replace with your existing sim card. the device is SIM UNLOCKED. whew.

the n-gage has to be both a phone and a game console. so you need to set your expectations. currrently there is no phone on the market that's perfect, and no game console that's perfect, so even though nokia sure had the chance here to exceed at both, it's unrealistic to expect it. i'll tackle the phone characteristics first, and then present the gaming capabilities.

those who are familar with the nokia 3650 line of phones will immediately notice a lot of similarities to the n-gage, because they are both based on the symbian series 60 platform. they are slightly different versions however and not all programs compiled for the 3650 work on the n-gage.

the phone supports most of what you would expect it to - it has a speakerphone, a wired headset, and supports bluetooth headsets that support the "handsfree" bluetooth specification. as i have a bluetooth headset that supports the "headset" profile, it would not work with the n-gage. make sure you check this out before purchasing a bluetooth headset. i recommend the sony ericsson hbh-60 or it's soon to be released successor, the hbh-65.

the speakerphone works great, but i have to be honest, i could not for the life of me figure out how to use the n-gage as a phone you hold up to your ear...finally figuring out you have to hold it perpendicular to your head instead of flat against it! imagine cutting a compact disc in half, and then holding the edge you just cut flat against your cheek and you'll get the picture.

on the messaging side of things, the n-gage supports SMS, MMS and email (both POP3 and IMAP). looking at the UAProf, the phone supports MMS up to 100K, and images up to 640x480. also, it supports both symbian and j2me installers to be sent as an MMS, as well as 3gpp video - features that i haven't seen anyone taking advantage of yet - but seeing as this is a gaming phone, it could be a bettter way to deliver games to the phone instead of WAP download. the MMS player itself still doesn't support MMS slideshows, which i found a little surprising.

the email client itself only allows for one mailbox to be active at a time. the client is adequate for receiving and viewing mail, not the best for responding. that said, it's as good as you can find on a phone-phone without paying extra.

sizewise, the n-gage is big for a phone, but it was actually smaller than i expected from the pictures. it's not any worse than a p800 for carrying around in your pocket, and it is a bit thinner, which is the dimension that counts, to a certain extent.

battery life is not stellar. it will last a good day if your signal is strong, otherwise it seems to drain a little faster than i have come to expect from a nokia phone. there's also no indicators to tell you bluetooth is on, and when bluetooth is on, the battery drains even faster. battery life is a little below average, but passable.

enough with the phone, how about the games?

wait, before i get into games, you should note the n-gage also has a radio that requires the headset to be attached, and an mp3 player that can play mp3s off internal memory or the MMC card. the mp3 player seems to be handle high bit VBR recordings just fine, a problem i have had before with some other phones that can play mp3s. you do have to use an included adaptor to listen to music or play games to a standard pair of headphones.

there is also now an included screen shot utility, making it super easy to snap some of the examples you see here.

what about the games?

i'm glad you asked. first, i'm sure you've all read about how you have to switch games when using a cartridge. if not, i'll paraphrase. cartridge games are delivered on an MMC card, but in order to switch games, you have to turn off the machine, pop off the back, remove the battery, and swap the MMC card out. yes, you have to remove the battery. this seems to have been a remnant of engineering in which removing the SIM card with the battery in can short the phone - yet hot swapping MMC cards doesn't seem to be a problem for the likes of palm, and having gaming cartridges go into an exernal slot in a portable gaming machine was done in the early nineties on the SEGA game gear, but that's not the biggest problem i have. the biggest problem is that they didn't include 2 MMC slots.

with only 1 slot, you can *either* play a game or use an app you have saved to the MMC card, but not both. it would have been nice to have a 128MB MMC card for apps and mp3s, and then another slot for cartridge games. that would have gone a long way toward making this an all in one device. even better would be a way to do a transfer of a cartridge game to your own MMC so you could consolidate games onto one MMC, but the digital rights around that would be a nightmare. having to swap MMC cards is okay, but not an optimal solution.

thankfully, playing games is a lot of fun on the n-gage. games you used to play on your other phones will just be easier on the n-gage, mostly due to the physical phone profile of it looking and feeling like a game controller. for instance JAMDAT football, which i found clumsy to operate on the LG VX6000 and the nokia 3650, is way more fun to play on the n-gage. i was also able to copy some j2me games written for some other phones to the n-gage such as cybiko tetris, and they all worked much better (and loaded way faster!) on the game deck. there are a lot of third party games and apps you can get for the n-gage. a good place to start is my-symbian.com.

i tried 2 cartridge games: Lara Croft Tomb Raider and Sonic N.

tomb raider looks about as good as any game i've seen on a screen this size, pretty comparable to the 3d demos on the p800. it has an online mode (n-gage arena) for racing other online opponents over gprs. it's not taxing on the network but a good example of what can be done over gprs.

sonic is fun, with plenty of depth, and saves your game as you progress automatically which is cool. the graphics are pretty good, although i have to say this game looks better on a palm tungsten c. playability, however, is won by the n-gage. there's a lot to say for playing games with a game controller vs some odd layout of buttons.

the console has the ability to play networked games of up to 6 people over bluetooth, which is great, but since i doubt i will know 6 people with an n-gage, only the future will tell if this will be a useful feature. it has nintendo backpedaling a bit, who recently made a deal with motorola to supply a wireless gaming interface to the gameboy advance.

the real power will be whether or not programmers can pull off networked games over GPRS. it's possible. when i was a younger lad, i played many a game of ID's Quake with capture the flag mod over a 28.8 modem which was adequate until some LPB (low ping bastard) came in on his (or her, but let's be realistic, it was probably a him) t1 and started shooting up the place. with a somewhat level playing field, i await someone to port quake to the n-gage so we can all try this out. better yet, if they EA can get networked FIFA to work over GPRS, they might just sell three more n-gages in this office alone.

summary
i like the n-gage. it's a phone you can play games very well on. it's not a game console that will go up against nintendo game boy advance. it's in a whole different price class. it is in a category of its own! i commend nokia for trying to innovate, and test the waters for how all these mediums can play together. it's not the best phone on the market, it's not the best game console on the market. it is, however, the best phone on which you can play games on the market. who will nokia sell the n-gage to? good question. i'd love to get my hands on the owner demographics once we make it through the holiday season.

ratings
phone: 7
texting: 8
mms: 7
email: 7
browser: 7
pda features: 6
camera: 0
battery: 4
usability: 7
durability: 8
stability: 9
gameplay potential: 10
third party apps: 9
fashion: 8
out-of-box accessories: 7