Review Nokia N-Gage QD. Part 2.

Review. Part one

Software

The operating system kernel is Symbian OS version 6.1 while the platform (user's interface) is Nokia Series 60 version 1.2. The capabilities of the game phone are quite similar to the first model of the line, it is possible to install the same third-party software as on a usual smartphone based on Series 60.

Telephone (start screen) Battery capacity and signal level indicators are traditionally placed in the left and right corners of the screen. The operator's name, date and time are also there. A bit below one may see a line with service icons indicating Bluetooth activity, the access to an MMC card, handsfree headset, unread messages and so on. The main part of the screen is taken up with wall papers (it is possible to replace them with any picture for choice). In the bottom there are tips for soft keys that may be reset by your request.

From the start mode a number may be dialled. There is a possibility to adjust the volume level using a joystick during a conversation and that is not quite comfortable considering the construction of the device.

Contacts. A list of all the contacts is given in alphabetic order (sorted by a surname). When creating a new contact 8 fields are available by default. It is possible to add 22 fields more and a text note, titles of the fields may be changed. Also a small picture may be added to a contact and it will be displayed as a small icon when viewing a card or incoming call. There is a possibility to assign a voice tag, a personal call melody and speed dialing with the help of one of the digital keys. Exchanging cards (vCard) with Sony Ericsson t630, notebook and a pocket PC Asus A730 is committed with no troubles. All the entries may be divided into groups, they have to be created and edited by yourself because no any groups are preset. Here and below the number of entries is limited only by the capacity of free memory shared dynamically.

Calendar. The program that deals with a business schedule (meetings, calls, birthdays and so on). When creating a new meeting 7 fields are available and new ones may not be added. It is possible to set a meeting recurret and assign a reminder. There are several calendar views, they are daily, weekly, monthly and a year view.

Messaging. A program for controlling SMS, e-mail and MMS. All the settings were applied with no troubles. The possibilities of the mail client are completely similar to the ones in the first model of N-Gage series. When entering a message it is possible to choose Russian dictionary T9, change the language.

Web. An integrated browser supports viewing WML and XHTML pages but not usual HTML.

Extras. Extra utilities are gathered together in this item. See details on them below.

Images. Viewing graphical images.

Screen shot. This program makes a copy of the screen and saves it as JPG file in the main memory, but saving it on a memory card is impossible.

Video Player. A 3GP files player. The program implements only the main functions and its settings are poor. The player refused playing 3GP clips recorded with Asus A730 referring to their big size.

Calculator. A plain calculator without any noticeable peculiarities.

Clock. A possibility to set time and alarm clock, not more.

Notes. Text notes, that is clear from the name.

Applications. Displays a list of set and downloaded J2ME games and starts them.

Voice Recorder. This utility records voice tags, plays uploaded on the phone call melodies (MIDI).

To-do. This is an utility that runs tasks, shows lists of them, their status and deadlines. Its possibilities are minimal just like in smartphones run by mobile version of Windows. If you need a full realization of the function you'll have to use alternative developments.

Converter. Currency converter.

Composer. Composing own melodies.

Go to. The most frequently run programs, own ones may be added to the list.

Help. The name of the item speaks for itself and we won't tell about this item.

The next group of programs in the main menu is gathered in a Tools folder.

App. manager. Operating installed programs. It is possible to view the capacity of the taken memory and erase unnecessary programs. The program also displays the capacity of free memory.

Game manager. This is a specific utility for N-Gage. With its help it is possible to control game settings, saves, make a backup for them, this may be useful sometimes.

Call divert. Everything concerning redirection is here.

Profiles. Call profiles (call melodies, SMS alerts, vibrating alert, volume). There is an offline profile, when it is activated a radio part of the gamephone is turned off.

Settings. All the main settings of the smartphone are here.

Speed dial. Using this utility speed dialing of a user's number may be assigned to any digital key. And as usual, the "1" button is be default reserved for voice mail-box.

Log. This is a voice call, CMC and GPRS log. Also Voice Mail (voice mail-box), Bluetooth (the realization of Bluetooth is described in the first part of the review), Memory (information about a memory card), a program About and some uninteresting utilities for working with a SIM-card (SIM-menu, SIM-directory) are present, the presence of the last two items depends on the operator.

Before finishing the talk about software we'd draw readers' attention to the following fact. As different to the first N-Gage, QD doesn't support radio station receiving and playing MP3, there are no preinstalled corresponding programs. The support for playing MP3 may be provided with the help of third-party programs but the quality of the sound is very low (and mono). Thus using N-Gage QD as a full-scale MP3 player is impossible.

N-Gage Arena

One of the main innovations in new N-Gage QD is a preinstalled N-Gage Arena Launcher. After starting on the phone the program connects with the server via GPRS, by the way it is possible to access N-Gage Arena using a desktop on arena.n-gage.com.

If the connection is established from a game console first the program checks for an upgrade for N-Gage Arena Launcher, and if there are such ones they are downloaded. After that the system offers to enter a name and a password or register. The registering procedure is committed with no problems, after several minutes of filling data you may use all the possibilities of N-Gage Arena Launcher.

Which advantages does a user get, which services are realized? If to characterize N-Gage Arena in several words then it is an online community of N-Gage owners. There is a forum, a newsline, descriptions of already released and announced games. It is possible to download wall-papers for a favourite game, levels and extras for games that are available only on N-Gage Arena. But all of that may be done from a desktop. A unique possibility of N-Gage Arena is publishing own achievements (Global Ranking). In the majority of cases, when a support for N-Gage Arena is announced in a game, this is the possibility to publish one's results that is meant but not a real online game. A real possibility of online games will be implemented fully in future, it will be present in the next generation of N-Gage consoles with the support for EDGE. For the current moment N-Gage Arena project seems not so attractive and, by the way, is filled in partly, the newsline and downloads items are empty. No doubts, in some time N-Gage Arena will be completed and enough information will be provided, N-Gage Arena Launcher application will be released for the "first" N-Gage.

Games

While testing the game console we managed to play almost all the main games ever released for N-Gage. There are both ones that do really deserve to be called "hit" and secondary ones. The total number of games is 21 for today (according to n-gage.com) and a half of them is really worthy and deserves attention of gamers.

Besides already released games there are 25 announced for the moment. The majority of them is 3D and supports multiuser playing via Bluetooth. There are few games but considering the announcements the game base will grow rapidly and much will depend on the Christmas sales of the console.

If speaking about personal impressions, I liked Tomb Raider (one of the favourite games many years ago) the most from single player games. Also I liked playing Red Faction via Bluetooth (but there is too little people to play with, only several acquaintances having Nokia -Gage).

Specifications

The capacity of available memory is 3.4 MB but it is little for today, many programs and a game are impossible to run at once. But this memory is enough to run any game and play it.

The heart of the wireless game console is ARM4T processor working with the operating speed of 104 MHz, that is the same as in original Nokia N-Gage.

The results for the test using SPMark04 package. The test package is comparatively fresh and while sampling is collected it is hard to make any comparing conclusions, let's provide only results. In future we'll use SPMark for all our tests of Symbian smartphones.

Rivals

In fact, for the current moment Nokia N-Gage QD competes only with Game Boy Advance and is inferior to it in sales. By the New Year N-Gage will have been suffering even more pressure from the side of new generation of portable consoles, they are Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Let's speak about them in details.

PlayStation Portable (PSP). The console is announced on the 11 of May this year, the beginning of sales is planed for the end of 2004 in Japan, in Europe and North America PSP will appear in spring 2005. The specifications and the pictures of the console look impressing. The screen is full-format, 4.3" TFT-LCD with the resolution of 480 x 272 pixels, shows 16 million colors (none of the handhelds may boast with such a large screen). The dimensions are also not little - 170x74x23 mm, the weight is 260 grams. Wi-Fi (802.11b) is provided for multiuser games. Games will be sold on 1.8 Gb UMD (Universal Media Disc) disks, regular information carrier by Sony. There is a support for own music format ATRAC 3+, playing MPEG4. The compatibility of games between PSP and PS2 is announced. It won't be surprising if in some time after the start of sales the games get broken and may be saved on Memory Stick PRO Duo that is also supported by PSP. The games are already available for order in advance for $50. There is no any information about the price for now but most probably it will be 300 - 400 USD (and according to other sources - up to 500 USD). The number of buttons and switchers really amazes - just like in a Sony handheld. The announced working time is the same as for N-Gage QD - 10 hours of playing games. Full specifications are in a table below.

Nintendo DS. The final design and specifications for this console got available just during the preparation of this review. The sales are expected in the USA and Japan in the end of 2004 and in Europe the console will appear in the first quarter of 2005. The price will be about $175 (final data has not been confirmed yet). The main peculiarity of the game device is a double screen, each of them has the resolution of 256x192 pixels, 262K. One of the screens is a touchscreen. And as for the double screen I really liked a joke I found in the Internet, users do treat it suspicious because the solution seems unusual:

The console will support 2D and 3D graphics with the drawing speed of up to 30 million pixels a second, up to 16 users will be able to play at the same time with the help of Wi-Fi (802.11b, similar to PSP). The system is equipped with 67 MHz processor based on ARM9 kernel and 33 MHz subprocessor on the ARM7 kernel. A support for 16-bit sound and attaching earphones, the presence of two GBA ports (Game Boy Advance) are announced.

The specifications of Nokia N-Gage QD look dull against a background of the two rivals but the console by Nokia is the smallest and lightest. Nokia has great chances for good sales in Christmas if it releases that many announced games, makes a good advertising campaign, decreases the price for the console, uses traditional retail networks, even more so neither PSP or Nintendo DS will have been released in Europe before the New Year. N-Gage QD will come across the opposition of Nintendo DS in the USA in the New Year Eve, the prices will be comparable but compatibility with thousands of games by GBA will be a strong point of DS. The sales of N-Gage QD won't be great this year and will hardly exceed the results of the original Nokia N-Gage. Many customers will postpone buying the portable console to the spring 2005 when PSP appears all over the world. In our opinion the most probable range of sales leaders will look this way:

1. Nintendo DS
2. PSP
3. Nintendo GBA (hit of the sales after the decrease of the price caused by the release of Nintendo DS)
4. Nokia N-Gage/N-Gage QD

Impressions and conclusions

As we expected Nokia N-Gage QD haven't rouse any cavils in the quality of connection. The volume of the polyphonic alert was always enough and a call melody is heard well even in a noisy street (there is a separate loud speaker for this purpose), the power of the vibrating alert is a bit higher than average.

The following results may be gained if comparing N-Gage QD with the first model of the series. The improved ergonomics, it is possible to speak on the device like on a usual phone without putting the edge of the device to the ear during a conversation, there is a hot change of memory cards, the dimensions are decreased and the design got more attractive. But at the same time multimedia part is cut (radio, MP3), a USB port is absent, the body is made of a cheaper material, the device is only dual band GSM but not trial. The screen is a bit brighter than in the first Nokia N-Gage but is really inferior to Nokia 7610. The possibilities of the operating system remained the same.

So, something got better and something worse but there are no any qualitative changes, they will appear only in the next model of the N-Gage series (larger screen, side buttons, support for EDGE and some other important changes). Nokia QD will be bought by those who were prevented from buying N-Gage by a dubious ergonomics but do not need multimedia capabilities much (radio, MP3). Also N-Gage QD is interesting as one of the cheapest smartphones, even to company users however paradoxical it sounds.

Judging by the worsening competition between wireless consoles (Nintendo DS, PSP), poor game library, badly developed N-Gage Arena service (its main function is publishing own best results but not real online game) it is possible to say that Nokia N-Gage won't become the hit of the sales. This is an intermediate product between N-Gage and N-Gage II (let's call it this way).

Review Nokia N-Gage QD. Part 1>>>

We are grateful to DIXIS for the provided devices

Anton Kotov ([email protected])
Translated by Maria Mitina ([email protected])

Published — 17 October 2004

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