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Handhelds Portables (Games) Entertainment Games Hardware

Hands-On With The Nokia N-Gage 239

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-it-looks-so-cool dept.
CokoBWare writes "Finally! Gamesindustry.biz has done a hands-on review of the Nokia N-Gage cellphone/games machine. The results don't impress the judges much, but I suppose the consumer will ultimately be the judge."
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Hands-On With The Nokia N-Gage More

Hands-On With The Nokia N-Gage

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  • Does it run Linux? Or can we port it over? :)

  • How Long... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lord_paladine ( 568885 )
    ...but how long until we see Half-Life 2 for it?

  • Oh, good... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ckafura ( 633003 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:10PM (#6936379)
    ...another thing to distract people while they're driving.

    • Re:Oh, good... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      More so than a gameboy does now?

    • "Oh, good... ...another thing to distract people while they're driving."

      If you really feel that way, then remove your car radio and CD player. Don't contribute to the problem.

    • Re:Oh, good... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Tofino ( 628530 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:21PM (#6936509)
      Indeed. While in the UK recently we took a coach from Gatwick airport to Heathrow, about a 50 minute drive. From high up in the bus you could see all the truck drivers' activities. From casual viewing, we saw no less than four truck drivers fiddling with their cell phones at length, either texting or playing games, WHILE DRIVING their bloody great lorries. Glad to get up in the air where it's safe...

    • Re:Oh, good... (Score:4, Informative)

      by jeblucas ( 560748 ) <[jeblucas] [at] [gmail.com]> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:08PM (#6938026) Homepage Journal
      Well, here [ntsb.gov] would be the place to check for such real numbers, but I'm sure the study is either not started or still ongoing. I think we all feel safer knowing that the 15-person bus rollover study is completed though.

      I remember listening to a report on NPR by someone from the Illinois equivalent of the NTSB and he had some good reasons for why cell phones are more distracting than stereos or even in-car conversation: Cellphones keep the driver distracted by a non-traffic sensitive other. Most drivers can work the radio without looking at it. Most passengers in the car can see when things are getting hairy traffic-wise and shut the hell up. Random on the cellphone doesn't know where the hell you are and can't tell you about the semi making a wide right.

  • Another hands on review (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:12PM (#6936392)
    As mentioned here [slashdot.org], from IGN Wireless [ign.com].

  • WHY DID THEY DESIGN IT LIKE THIS? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:12PM (#6936399)
    In order to put a game into the system, you have to: turn the phone off, take the back cover off, remove the battery, slide out the existing game, put the new one in, put the battery back in, replace the back cover, hold down the power button for several seconds, wait for the system to boot up, open the main menu, select the game, open it... And then your game starts loading.

    Ok, so the thing LOOKS cool but is it functional. Apparently not. Who the hell wants to fumble around with removing a battery, sliding out an old cartridge, sliding in a new cartridge, and then replacing the cover?

    The wait issue is of no relevance to me, who cares, what I care about is having to hold thirty things in my hands while I fumble around trying to switch games.

    In this day and age, and all the devices that have come out (especially handheld gaming units) why would ANYONE think that this design would be acceptable?

    Just my worthless .02
    • Simple...you'll be downloading all the cool games.
      • Extremely unlikely - all of the high-budget games will only be available on MMC cards. Due to various DRM features, you won't be able to copy those games to a larger card (to consolidate your game collection into a single card) or copy them directly to the phone's memory.
    • what makes them think that the combination cell phone/game machine is what people will want? I think that there are two seperate markets that they are failing to recognize. Are they trying to sell it as a cell phone that plays good games or a game machine that is also a cell phone. If it is the latter, then it is doomed to failure real gamers are going to be more concerned about functionality as a game playing machine only. In that regard, it doesn't appear to be ready to compete with the new backlit, r
      • I'm not sure which they intended it as. By all reports, it fails at both. Even if it were either a good phone, or a good gaming system, the price is too high to justify.

        A Gameboy Advance SP is $100. If the N-Gage were, say, $150, THEN I think they'd have something. But for $300, it has to be both a great phone, and a great gaming system, and its only target market is those people who were thinking about buying both a Gameboy and a cell phone at the same time.

        At a price point around $150, it would only

    • I feel I should have some sort of reference upon which to base this speculation, but I don't. Nonetheless, I'd assume that the designers were told to focus less on things like game cartridges; Nokia probably wants to focus on downloadable games. If it concentrates on its wireless aspects, it differentiates itself immediately and fully from the GBA.
    • To be honest, I'm not sure how anybody except a marketing executive could think the n-gage even looks cool... I think it's downright ugly.

  • Cellphones that play games VS Gameboy Cellphones (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FileNotFound ( 85933 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:13PM (#6936406) Homepage Journal
    This is pure opinion, but I am certain that the Ncage will fail.

    Thing is, most people buy cellphones for the purpose of staying in touch. The games are just a feature. It's much easier to justify $300-400 for a great phone which will provide crystal clear sound etc than for a very expesnive gameboy.

    I just don't see myself or any 'adult' wanting an ncage. Sure the "adults" may play games on their PDAs and cellphones, but they didn't buy them for that purpose. The people who buy ncage will be doing so purley to play games, I don't see the gamer market being crazed about cellphones. The kids on the other hand would proably rather have a GBA nor would they have the money for an ncage.
    • I totally agree. They are building a videogame system with cell phone functionality, but is there anyone who really cares? If it had a revolutionary design, with seamless integration of cell/gaming features, and the price was say, under $100, it would do well.

      As it is, this product is just an ungainly Frankendevice that instead of being marketable to the cell phone and gaming crowds, is priced so high and is so clumsily designed that it appeals to neither. They made a 'meh' product, and I was hardl

    • If you have Nokia Symbian phone (like this N-Gage, the 3650, or 7650), check out this free Game Boy emulator [wildpalm.co.uk].

      It's not perfect, but it's still cool to play Super Mario Land on my phone.

    • I agree that it won't do well, but for different reasons:

      (1) All games consoles, including handhelds are sold at a loss, with the expectation that the licenced software sales will more than recoup the hardware costs. Nokia are not doing this - they are charging full price for the hardware, and then leaving the developers free to charge full price for the software. Nintendo and co can't lose so long as they produce great games, or profit from the 3rd party developers, but Nokia, as a hardware-only company d
    • I've said it before and I'll say it again.

      I *am* an adult, and I own a GBA SP. I've also owned a GBC and GBA original. There is absolutely *no* reason for rational people to buy one of these things, as it's WAY cheaper to buy a cell phone and a GBA SP separately. This way, at least there's tons of games for the gaming device!

      Nokia, seriously, you're going to screw yourself over with your latest device. Do you really think that you can go up against the GBA with what you've got and WIN?

    • Re:Cellphones that play games VS Gameboy Cellphone (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @06:14PM (#6936989) Homepage Journal
      it's not very easy to justify 300-400$ to a phone just for speaking, unless you just like shiny things.

      fyi, you can get phones for much under that are perfect for 'just getting clystar clear sound', even in market areas where tying the phone and provider is illegal(that is, in finland for example). the 'crystal clear' sound hasn't been an issue for the last 5 years anymore(as long as the phone stays in one piece and doesn't break up), except of course in areas with poor gsm operators who don't think it's important to have good coverage throughout the nation(finland isn't exactly packed with population in the rural areas, but the phones work flawlessly). things like battery life(which you can't feel when buying the phone) and stylistic features and now real extra functionality have become the things to seperate yourself from the market.

      the thing is.. it's also a s60 phone(and afaik, it's going to be the _cheapest_ s60 phone available, not sure on that though), allowing you to run symbian apps(c64 emulator, gbc emulator, read ebooks, read slashdot, wipe your ass, develop stuff for it with freely available tools, does your dishes, let's you get the latest news, use as a remote control for your pc through bluetooth, have bluetooth dongles at both work and home and use it as a data transferer.. it has pretty wide array of geeky uses), so it's not just a 'phone' anyways. it also has a memory slot for relatively cheap media(compared to sticks&etc) that's available too, easily in any pc store.

      and as for why people buy cellphones.. they need to have it, it's no longer considered an option to have it, everybody has it and is pretty much expected to have one as well. when they get tired of the old phone(or if/when it breaks) they pretty much 'have' to get a new phone, some go for the looks, some go for the geek features, some go for the pop features and small size.

      while i do agree(heck, i've heard that even nokias engineers agree) that it is retarded to have the mmc card under the battery(dunno, maybe the original design team thought that it would be only changed every once and then?).
      • "and as for why people buy cellphones.. they need to have it, it's no longer considered an option to have it, everybody has it and is pretty much expected to have one as well."
        I am probably the only person in America who doesn't have a cellphone. Why? When I go out and get away from my computer (and my phone) it is usually becuase I don't want to be found. I don't want to be bothered every minute of my life by ppl calling me up. I just want to be left alone. Now you could say 'just turn the thing off when
        • well, most people do go out while they want to be available(most of the time, and when you don't, like you said you turn off the thing). i bet even you do go get pizza sometimes while you might be called, most people don't spend most of their time at home even(unlike slashdotters). it's quite hard to arrange a meeting by phone if there's just short windows on both ends that have to match to be able to make that call

          anyways.. the difference in 10 years has been huge over here, now everyone has a cellphone,
    • "nor would they have the money for an ncage"
      Especially considering you can get a ps2 AND a gamecube for the price of a single N-gage. Portability is nice, but not at this price.
  • The results don't impress the judges much, but I suppose the consumer will ultimately be the judge."


    From what I hear from everyone that gets a chance to play with one of these...they don't even make a good phone and the games are terrible!
    Stick with your Nokia phone and GameBoy Advanced SP

  • problem: ngage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VAXGeek ( 3443 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:16PM (#6936447) Homepage
    solution: buy a game boy advance and a cell phone.

  • I'm not banking on it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:18PM (#6936467) Homepage
    I'm not banking on it. Why?

    The phone companies in the US will try to provision it to death, like they do everything else, which knocks it out here. But that's just the start.

    You are knocking out a lot of the prospective audience by making it a games device first and a phone second. You can get away with having your employer buy a phone with games, as long as it doesn't look like a GBA. You can get away with buying a PDA and putting games on it because it still looks businesslike. This screams "I'm playing games". Older folk aren't going to go for it, which leaves the younger folk, who aren't necessarily going to have enough cash.

    It also doesn't bring any cool network functionality to the table. All of the games are just that... games. I might as well get a GBA and a phone. No MMORPGs. You have to use cartrages and they are a pain in the rear to install, instead of just letting you download stuff.

    Of course, they may make the v2.0 or v3.0 version actually good.
    • Older folk aren't going to go for it, which leaves the younger folk, who aren't necessarily going to have enough cash.

      Even counting only US younger folk, the younger folk represent a spending power larger than a pretty decent chuck of the African continent. Well, I don't know about African economies actually, but teenager's influenced spending power is about $520 billion [go.com]. Anually.

      With handset subsidies being what they are in many places, the difference between a very uncool phone and a very cool phone ma
      • Good point.

        There's a problem. Previously, the phone was a *phone* with extras. With something that's a pretty cruddy phone but a good gaming machine, I'm not sure if people's parents are going to go for it as much as a cool phone that contains the same functionality but looks like a "real" phone.

        Which may be version 2 of the NGage concept.

  • Saw one at EBX (Score:3, Informative)

    by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) * on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:18PM (#6936480) Homepage
    I saw a N-GAGE at EBX this past weekend. It wasn't operable, but they did have some of the library for it. The Sega games made me look twice, but the rest of the library doesn't impress me any. Ahh well. I'd pay the $80 for the Neo Geo Pocket instead.

  • Wouldnt you feel like an idiot talking into this?? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Serapth ( 643581 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:18PM (#6936482)
    Sorry... dont mean to cater to the trendy aspects of soceity, but wouldnt you feel like an idiot talking into this thing in a crowded room? You gotta admit, for a good chunk of people ( the majority? ), a cellphone isnt just a tool, its also a piece of fashion. Why do you think they sell custom vanity face plates, or branded ( Gap, Roots, etc... ) cell phones. This one though... hell, im a geek and it still screams geek to me !!! :)

    Not to mention that fact that you have to remove the battery to put the games in?!?!?! Um.......... how the hell did that idea make it out of engineering. That one design failure alone, leads me to believe that Nokia isnt that serious about entering the gaming market... either that, or the are just not meant to be there!

  • Are you so sure about that? (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:20PM (#6936494) Homepage
    The results don't impress the judges much, but I suppose the consumer will ultimately be the judge.

    Really? What if the consumer is a construction worker? Or a student?

    Or imagine a scenario where they sell two N-Gages--it could be a judge and a construction worker!

  • The Important Question... (Score:4, Funny)

    by lord_paladine ( 568885 ) <wdnm91q02@sneakemail.com> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:20PM (#6936501)
    ...I suppose the important question is, does this model spontaneously burst into flames [admpartners.com]?
  • I think that this is just a bad implementation of a bad idea.

  • So when will they come out with the HO-Gauge? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Buran ( 150348 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:23PM (#6936537)
    Inquiring minds want to know...

  • Wait for PSP!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:24PM (#6936542) Journal
    The gameboy owns the handheld world. It is nintendos domain.

    Better specs have not won the fight. The Neo Geo Pocket, TurboGrafx Xpress, Sega Game Gear and Nomad, Lynx, Game.com.

    Many have come, many have failed.

    Playstation Portable sounds like it'll be the first handheld to give the gameboy line a run for it's money. But I'm not banking on that either.

    Nintendo promised some amazing new revolutionary whizamajig for next year. A successor to the GBA? A successor to gamecube? Who knows...

    But, my bet is a portable gamecube. This is purely speculation, but it makes sense. The miniDVD format for GCN games has always been a bit of an enigmah - until you think about a handheld device... You could squish a gamecube into something handheld for the price of an nGage..

    Maybe I'm dreaming, but hot damn that'd rock. Even if it was a different console, but they had "hybrid" games, ie, one version plays on the gamecube, a "lighter" version for it's portable sibling..

    Anyhow.

    Woe be to all ye who enter Nintendo's sacred grounds.
    • It's stupid to use an optical disk in a portable. You burn a lot of power with a motor to spin the thing up, and then you need a ridiculous anti-skip buffer. Solid state is a buzzword for a reason.

      If you're making a PSP and you've already stuck 90% of a full laptop in there, then you can go ahead and splurge on the motor, but that's not Nintendo's style. You have to beat them over the head just to get them to light up the screen.
    • When Nintendo first showed the mini-discs, they said right away that one of the reasons for them was the possibility of using them in a future GameBoy.

  • To hell with this...get a GP32 (Score:5, Informative)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:25PM (#6936555) Homepage Journal
    Why no Slashdot articles about the GP32 and all the development efforts [gp32emu.com] on that system?
  • How can you complain about the games being on "small sd cards" - thats perfect IMO. After all your wanting a PORTABLE game device that is SMALL and takes up LESS SPACE on the go right? After all your playing games not working on your laptop? So how is that a valid complaint that "wah the cartidges are so small and easy to loose"

    Also his description of putting a game in and switching cartidges is somewhat nonsense. If I compared it to my game it'd be somehting liek this: I have to put the cartidge in then t
    • So how is that a valid complaint that "wah the cartidges are so small and easy to loose"

      Because SD cards are small and easy to lose. The game-size-vs-portability issue is one that Nintendo tackled and resolved just fine on the Game Boy systems.

      It's not the fact that you have to turn it off that's annoying; it's the fact that you have to remove a cover, take out the battery, replace both, and wait. All together, that's a real nuisance if you're switching games more than once a week.

    • Re:Bah what a crap review.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:37PM (#6936670) Journal
      Having to dismantle the thing to replace the cards sounds super lame. Do you have to take the battery cover off a gameboy, remove the batteries, switch game, replace batteries, replace cover? No, because that would be retarded.

      My Kyocera 7135 phone with built-in PalmOS has a nice side-loading SD slot, so what's the dilly-o with Nokia?

      Those SD cards aren't just small and easy to lose, they break realllllly easily.

      If they make it to nGage Advance, it'll have a handy side-loading slot, that autodetects the cartridge without powering off, just like my phone does now.

      (Btw, this kyocera phone is a buggy pile of shit - it gets "fatal exceptions" when it rings and the battery cant last 24 hours in a stretch, lest anyone think I'm praising it)
    • Starting with an empty device and getting to game's title screen:

      1. take the back cover off
      2. remove the battery
      3. insert game
      4. put the battery back in
      5. replace the back cover
      6. hold down the power button
      7. open the main menu
      8. select the game

      vs.

      1. insert game
      2. turn on
  • Just because the NGage is a lousy phone and a lousy console, and not neccessarily in that order does not make this a Bad Idea.

    I'm still a fan of convergence, even though i see it done badly so often. Kinda like horror movies. I can put up with a lot of Scream swquwls for one "Ring", and I can sit through a lot of MS Bob, NGage and fridges with net connections, for one good media and entertainment device that fits in my watch pocket and last several days on a charge.

    remember listening to midi files over

  • Good Idea, But.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joel8x ( 324102 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:41PM (#6936701) Homepage
    Its a shame they didn't pay attention to detail. The problems outlined by the article will definitely steer me clear of the system all together. A horrible UI, pain in the ass to change games, can't listen to the MP3 player at the same time as playing the games, etc.

    I disabled all of the extra features on my cell phone because they weren't worth the extra $ every month. I tried to buy tickets for a movie once on it and when I went to pick them up they handed me 3 pair of tickets when I only ordered one! The UI for the browser would bring me pack to the confirm page each time I opened it - I decided then that the service was not ready for prime time.

    I come from the school of "design the device/application to do its primary job right and do it well". If your going to try and sell me on half assed features, then I'm not buying. My phone handles phonecalls well and thats why I bought it. The NGage looks uncomfortable as a phone, and falls short on everything else.

  • All in what?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MhzJnky ( 443677 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @05:46PM (#6936730) Homepage
    Am I the only one that dosn't want to make calls, store my calander, play games, listen to MP3's, email, IM, Text Message, all on the same device. What if I deside I want a better game player, what do I do with the rest.

    Not to mention a GOOD mp3 player is $200, good portable game system is $100, PDA: $250, Cell Phone: $200. So unless this thing cost $750 what's the chances of it not stinking in atlest one (if not more) of these areas.

    Oh, and I'm not buying the component reuse argument. A good PDA screen dosn't make a good Cell phone screen. Plus then all you get is a bunch of software emulated hardware function.. whoohoo
  • The best part of the article was the end, where the reviewer sternly chastises Nokia like a little boy who isn't taking care of that puppy he got for his birthday:

    "Nokia needs to think very hard about whether it's really committed to the games industry, and whether the people who planned this device really understood what they were undertaking to do in the first place."

    Shame on you, Nokia, shame!

  • ...and I judge it barely worth ridicule.
  • I always thought Picard would sue them over the name....
  • However, in this instance we found ourselves reaching for the volume control - only to discover that there isn't one, and that volume has to be adjusted using internal software menus on the games. The unit does, however, come supplied with a decent pair of headphones and hands-free kit - although we noticed that there's no normal 3.5mm jack for standard headphones on the deck, and you'll need to use the bundled adapter cable to plug in your own third party cans.

    That's the exact same thing Nintendo did, ex

  • A technically intelligent reviewer would have linked these together:

    1) Size ...we were still struck by the size of the device ... . It looks and feels like an Game Boy Advance on a diet, and although it's large by modern mobile phone standards, it fits comfortably in an average trouser pocket and is light enough to carry around comfortably.

    2) Backlight N-Gage, by comparison, has superb resolution, a consistently bright display and excellent colour contrast.

    3) Graphics Processing ...we do wonder why

  • The better idea would've been... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [orpxnyl]> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @07:16PM (#6937598)
    ...going to Infogrames/Atari and asking them to license the Atari Lynx. So much time has gone by that the whole design chipwise could've been compressed into a single modern chip which would've cut the costs down significantly. They could've added the chip to several of their mobile phone offerings and then spent some money into beefing up the networked games for the Lynx so that they'd work over the mobile network to find other players to compete against. Say what you want but *Todd's Adventure in Slime World* was a great game when you were playing against 7 other players. The same goes for *Battlewheels,* *Warbirds* and several other titles. The problem with the Atari Lynx was, compared to the Gameboy, it was difficult finding other friends/acquaintances that owned them so you could benefit from the network gaming unless several members of a local Atari Computer Users Group also owned Lynxes (like S.T.A.R. here in Sacramento did). But with the compressed Lynx chip spread over the whole Nokia mobile phone product range, that would never be a problem.

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