Dan Rutter pulls apart the latest game-enabled mobile phone from Nokia and finds that, although it may feel like 'talking to a taco', it provides a big improvement on the humble Snake that's graced our mobiles for years.
People have been playing games on mobile phones for years now, but today's full colour 'smartphones' can manage a lot more than another update of Snake.
They've got nothing on Nokia's N-Gage, though. It's the first true mobile phone/handheld game hybrid. GSM phone, extra Symbian OS smartphone features, MP3 player with FM radio and, yes, 3D-capable handheld 'game deck', with Bluetooth multiplayer capability.All in one 70 x 134 x 20mm package, weighing 137g with battery.
No camera, flashlight, laser pointer or fly fishing reel included. But you can't have everything.
The N-Gage has a normal mobile phone button count plus a few multimedia extras. For games, you use the D-pad to the left of the screen, and the 5 and 7 keys on the keypad do A and B button duty.
The N-Gage doesn't need a lot of plugs and sockets. There's just a USB connector, audio in and out (using tenth-inch micro-plugs, not standard eighth-inchers), a DC input, and a hole for the speaker's sound to get out.
The back of the N-Gage comes off easily, which is good, because N-Gage gamers will be taking it off a lot. N-Gage 'cartridges' are MultiMediaCards (MMCs), which is fine, but the N-Gage doesn't have a 'cartridge slot' that lets you swap games the same way as you do with other handhelds.
Instead, there's an SD spot under the back cover; it's much like the smaller SIM card slot nearby. The SD card is, weirdly, retained by the edge of the battery. So you actually have to take the battery out, as well as remove the back cover, to swap games.
If you only want to play one game while you're out and about with your N-Gage, this isn't a big problem. But if you want to swap games on the road, it is. Juggling two SD cards, the case-back, the battery and the main body of the N-Gage, while trying to keep the exposed contacts on the N-Gage and its cards clean and undamaged (better add an MMC case to the things you're shuffling...), is a heck of a lot more complex than just popping out a GBA cart and slapping another one in.
Under the skinThe front panel's easy to remove, to allow you to 'skin' your N-Gage. A metal plate protects the circuit board from harm.
The button switches are high quality metal dome units, which have less travel but a more positive click than the rubber dome switches used in the GBA. The N-Gage doesn't have pressure sensitive buttons; neither does the GBA.
The little things in between the switches are the LEDs that backlight the keypad.With the circuit board removed, you can see the adorable little ported enclosure for the speaker. The speaker, and all of the N-Gage's other connectors and widgets, connects to the circuit board with elegant no-plug spring terminals.
On the flip side of the circuit board, the chips are all covered by clip-on RF shields. They're essential for a device that wants to receive FM as well as work as a phone.Pop off the shields and a substantial chipset's revealed.
The high chip count isn't surprising, when you consider how much the N-Gage can do. A full Series 60 Symbian OS feature set of comms and multimedia stuff, plus the game deck features, plus the radio.
You'd better just use these as decorations, if you use them at all, because I couldn't find info on some of the important ones.
The Philips TEA5767 is a single chip FM radio, the TI AIC23B (full name TLV320AIC23B) is a stereo audio CODEC with integrated headphone amp, the three AMD N643GT7MI chips are 64 megabit CMOS flash memories, and the SEC 316 J61L K4M28163PD-marked chip is a Samsung 128 megabit DRAM, but the UPPWD2F 34A1N9J, 4370825 PKO4U0301 and Hitachi 08125B 2M3 3MJ1763 chips, I couldn't find. The Hitachi one's obviously important :-).
The screenThe N-Gage screen has an unusual portrait layout, with 208 x 179 pixel resolution. It's backlit (like the GBA SP), it has a 4,096 colour palette (the GBA can display 511 colours at once from a 32,768 colour palette, but there's really very little difference for gadgets this small), and it's driven by hardware capable of true 3D. One of the release games is a surprisingly faithful remake of the original Tomb Raider.
The screen's backlit by these four white LEDs; a diffuser panel turns their output into an even glow. Laptops do the same trick with the light from a white fluorescent tube.
As an ordinary hold-it-to-your head phone, the N-Gage is mildly ridiculous, because the only place Nokia could find to put the microphone and speaker was the top edge - where the shoulder buttons would live if it were a GBA. As a result, you have to hold it to your face edge on.
Commentators have variously described this as looking like talking into a taco, conversing with a croissant, or having a Frisbee embedded in your head.
It shouldn't be a big problem, though, because the N-Gage comes with a stereo headset which doubles as a hands-free unit.
The N-Gage's biggest feature is Bluetooth multiplayer gaming, which is a great idea; you can play games on the bus, on the train, at work, anywhere, with anyone reasonably close. Of course, if nobody reasonably close even has an N-Gage, you're going to be out of luck.
Games can also transfer data over the phone system, which could be a very big feature if only some games come out that support it, and it doesn't end up costing a buck a minute.
Nokia have their work cut out for them with the N-Gage. Consoles, handheld or otherwise, need popularity, and the N-Gage will need more than a couple of multiplayer games to break the GBA's hold on the market. The N-Gage's awkward game-changing system and tiny game library (only four games shown so far) count against it - and then there's the redundancy problem. Nerds who can afford an N-Gage are likely to already have a phone. Maybe they'll swap their SIM card into the N-Gage after hours.
N-Gage Web site: http://www.n-gage.com/
We had an opportunity to fiddle with the gaming capabilities of Nokia's N-Gage to see exactly where it stands in terms of graphics and usability. In this case, the N-Gage has sacrificed some of its comfort as a mobile phone so as to provide the user with a reasonable grip for gaming. The position of the screen and the unit's flat shape make it hard to hold to the ear without planting a lovely thumbprint on the LCD.
Although Pandemonium wasn't the best game to test the N-Gage with, it did provi
Issue: 133 | February, 2012