Nokia N-Gage : 01/15/2004
By Effie B.
The Phone
This phone is all about gaming. I guess that this was the initial intent,
however, I do believe that everything else was an afterthought, the keypads,
the IA, and most importantly the ear and mouthpieces. The latter is probably
the biggest flaw in the phone’s design as you either must have a
headphone w/you or must be in a very quiet environment in order to properly
hear.
I’ve read many users complain about the internals of the phone where
you need to take out the battery in order to switch game. Although I agree
that this is not the most convenient way (and I don’t believe that
Nokia intentionally designed this as a security feature as they claim), I
don’t swap the memory card more then maybe once a week. As far as I
am concerned the earpiece design is far worse.
The OS
I have experienced a couple of crashes but I do suspect that they were as
a result of the game that I was playing at the time. I did notice that after
I check my voicemails and text messages that sometimes the notifications
still appear on the screensaver and only a power down/restart cleared them
out.
I read that some users complained about the graphics and performance while
playing. I played 3 games on this phone I personally I think that performance
was a bi-product of the game’s QA.
My biggest comment on the OS is that I don’t understand why my calendar
can’t sync with either my USB or bluetooth (bluetooth will only transfer
individual contacts)? Did the developer run out of time?
Bluetooth
On Linux there aren’t too many utilities available at this time but
the backend seem to be working quite well (you need to know what you are
doing though).
On Windows 2000 I am not sure. After installing the drivers my system started
crashing and I ran into conflicts with some applications. After a couple
of weeks I decided to remove the bluetooth drivers altogether.
USB
I use it to download my music but I can’t download/upload my contacts
or address book. Am I missing something? Maybe with proper documentation
I would have been able to understand it better.
Accessories/ Misc.
I got the Nokia case as a gift. If you think that the headphones were poorly
designed you should see the case. It covers some of the keys so if you need
to lock your phone, use it without headphones, access your contacts, configure
something or play a game – you need to take off the case. I believe
that the earpiece designer (mentioned earlier) was in charge of the case
design too. The Nokia software that came with the phone required you to have
a serial connection without which the app would not launch. I find it hard
to understand why bluetooth and/or usb weren’t an option so I ended
up uninstalling the software. I would love to know what I am missing.
Overall Advantages:
If you like gaming and like to have a phone with multiple options this is
the phone for you. I LOVE the mp3 player, the games, and the radio. I think
that those are the 3 most important and awesome features of this phone and
its probably still the main reason why I would still buy this phone if I
had to do it again.
Overall Disadvantages:
This phone lacks some major features such as it can’t sync a calendar,
the USB is limited to managing your music and w/the bluetooth you can only
download contacts one at a time. The software that comes with it requires
you have a serial cable. This is odd especially given that this phone is
both USB and bluetooth capable.
The headphone design is the worst I’ve seen. The game card location
should have been better designed.
My overall feeling is that both the OS and the hardware have far more capabilities
then what the phone has to offer. It feels like the phone is not mature enough
but it could also be that I am asking this phone for too much.
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