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Nokia has announced plans to deliver a redesigned version of its N-Gage gaming cell-phone. The new model, the N-Gage QD, has been built to address many of the design problems that plagued the original release.

"There was some very specific feedback that got us focused on making changes to the device," Nada Usina told GameSpot today. Usina, General Manager of Entertainment & Media, North & South America, said the new model "addresses some of the mental barriers" that impeded acceptance of the device among the core group of active gamers Nokia originally targeted.

The first generation N-Gage required you to remove the back cover and the battery simply to change a game. The QD streamlines this process by moving the MMC slot to the outside--sliding a game card into the slot will auto-launch the game. The D pad and buttons have been redesigned a bit, as well. The most noticeable control change is that the D pad no longer also functions as a button if you push it all the way in. That button has been moved to its own spot, directly to the right of the D pad.

The screen, while still vertically oriented, has a much cleaner look to it than the old N-Gage's screen, resulting in slightly sharper visuals. Finally, the QD's speaker and microphone are on the front of the unit instead of on the side, allowing phone users to speak into the device normally, as opposed to the classic N-Gage's side-talking configuration.

Usina warranted Nokia has having reacted "relatively quickly" to what was arguably uniform resistance to the original device. On the eve of the launch, Usina said that Nokia and the QD team were intent on making this upcoming launch more successful that last October's dismal first step in to the core gaming marketplace. She said Nokia intended to "spend as much time as possible educating and being educated."

Usina declined to specify the extent of product and user testing that went in to the redesigned unit, nor would she comment on the costs allocated to such pre-release research, but she did admit that research was much more extensive than what went into the product's first launch. She added that the relaunch "had the highest level of management attention" among top-level Nokia staff.

We spent some time with the QD recently, and found that it has a much more comfortable feel to it. The D pad and buttons generally feel more responsive, and the screen does, indeed have a sharper look to it. The game cards slide right in, which is certainly nicer than having to field-strip the unit just to play a new game. Removing games requires you to dig your fingernail into a small notch on the side of the card and pull the game out.

The QD will even sport a longer battery life than the original phone, but these new features do come at a price. Support for MP3 playback and FM radio support have been removed from the QD. Additionally, the N-Gage QD isn't a triband phone like its predecessor, meaning that two versions of the unit will be released to work with the different GSM bands used throughout the world. On the upside, the unit is available at a lower price. When bundled with a service contract, the QD is expected to sell for $99. Without subsidy from a service provider, the phone will go for $199 (with the platform's Tony Hawk title bundled in at that price). Price of the unit remains low, says Usina, due to the higher ARPU (average revenue per unit) the device generates for carriers.

The N-Gage QD will come with a preinstalled application known as the N-Gage Arena, which will connect to a community-oriented area that will allow players to view rankings, communicate with other users, and participate in other N-Gage related events. Usina said that of the 50 new titles due to retail this year, approximately three quarters will be Arena compatible. "Mobile, connected, multiplayer gaming is key" to the N-Gage agenda, Usina emphasized.

The N-Gage QD will hit North American shelves in June. European, African, and Asia Pacific regions will see the phone arrive at retailers in May.

[Pic]:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/20 ... een001.jpg

[Source]:
http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6093447.html

heh, the N-Gage will always suck no matter what.

i am looking forawrd to the PSP coming out soon

its a cell phone
phones are ment for talking not playing damn games

whats next a phone that turns in to a dildo...... wait i think they allready have one

You said N-guage and I got excited. I thought you were talking about model trains. Turns out you were only talking about cell phones. What a jip.

Yea, aren't cellphones for talking? And people wonder why I don't bother getting one.

Got a new Nokia 3200 yesterday, I don't need any N-Gage.

I bet the second the game boy turns into a phone, you'll buy one. It's just...nokia video games? screw that ;p

Word Birds.

I'll buy a cell phone when they make one without:

* Text messaging
* Walkie-talkie
* Camera
* Games
* Flip-open design
* Picture background
* Retarded typical stupid American ring-tones.
* Corporate logo feces smeared all over the 'home-page'. (I love it when I see a phone where you can enter your own text for the home page, and it doens't even center it, and makes it tiny compared to the bigass "VERIZON WIRELESS" plastered all over it.
* Draconian 2-year contract with $300 'early termination' clause. WTF is that, their service probably sucks, so they feel the need to contractually enslave their users to a piece of ★■◆● device on a piece of ★■◆● service?
* 5 billion minutes that no one could possibly use on the weekends, and 15 minutes allotted for the daytime..you know..when people actually use it.
* Any other stupid, brain-dead, bloated feature aimed at stupid, brain-dead, bloated Americans.

I will buy one when the code is open-source, and I can write my own UI for the phone, stripping off all that garbage.

um, testi, you can buy phones with no features.

theyre just; old phones.

besides, why not just get a cellphone and not USE the features? o_O

'cause they're in the way, they drain the battery whether you use them or not, they artifically inflate the price of the phone, and I'd rather not be just another in the long, long line of lemmings.

I didn't know old phones were still available on the market. The day I have a need for a cell phone, I'll look into that.

Im with Testi 100%

You know, the best buisness to be in is one where you make money off of stupid people. Think about it. An example is based off of the theme of this topic.

The phone my provider gave me (a nokia) does a bunch of crap that I have not interest in. I bet I don't use 90% of the "features". I just want to talk on the damn thing when I absolutely need to make or receive a phone call. I wish I still had my old one, which was simple and didn't have a freakin' half-assed operating system running on it. Damn Fins.

My phone must be old then, given Testi's feature list. It doesn't have the following:

Camera
Flip Open design (I'd actually find that useful)
Walkie-talkie (Unless I'm misunderstanding that)

The Verizon logo only shows up when the phone is first turned on, and only for a few seconds. The main view of the phone just has my name, a signal strength meter and battery level meter.

It's a fairly old Nokia, don't know the model.

I have a relatively new (well, depends on what you consider new) Nokia mobile phone, and I don't really need most of the features it has either. It doesn't have a camera (I'll buy a separate device if I need one) or other really weird stuff.

Most of the features probably don't add very much to the price of the unit, though, because once something like a game has been developed (and most of them, at least those provided on normal phones and not N-Gage, are pretty simple), it doesn't cost much to add it to the phone. I do agree that a lot of those unnecessary features bloat the user interface of the phone, though, and the design of UIs on those devices is a challenging enough task even without a lot of bloat.

I've never really understood the N-Gage, though. Maybe it would be handy if everything were combined in a single device, which would eliminate the need for several hand-held (and pocket-transported) devices, but if it comes at the cost of doing all that half-baked, no thanks.

index_html wrote:Damn Fins.

Thanks. ;-)

Today I went to buy shoes.

Bear with me, this goes somewhere.

My philosophy on shoes is keep it simple, stupid. Yet, with each passing year, it seems increasingly difficult to find a pair of athletic shoes that don't have a 100 plastic pieces or grotesque doodads glued to the side of the leather. This time, the search did not take long as I settled on a nice pair of Sketchers. But, surrounded by Nike shoes, one can't help but notice the dozens of worthless ornaments built into each one.

It's a lot like cell phones. A couple months ago, the family was searching for a new cell phone after the old cell phone of three years died. Apparently, once the batteries go in these things, it is prohibitively expensive to replace them as opposed to simply buying a new phone.

And so the search began for a new phone. A good week passed before a simple, stupid phone was found. Without a camera, without AOL IM, without the Internet, and without all of these stupid little features. Cause, let's face it, if you buy the standard $150-$250 cell phone, it's going to die in a couple years anyway because of battery issues. It's by design. In any case, I was surprised to learn from a T-Mobile dealer that the turnover rate of cell phones was beneath that of the actual battery life. People change their phones as often as they change underwear, just to get the latest and greatest new features. Suffice it to say, I can't imagine how much fully-functional phone junk is sitting around in landfills beside the infamous E.T. Atari cartridges.

In any case, back to the subject, the Nokia N-Gage is a feeble lost cause. It's not so much that if Nintendo made a cell phone out of a Game Boy they would be criticized - it's more that Nokia simply had no clue how to make a console but would pretend they did. Tiny controls, the need to remove the battery pack to change cartridges, crappy Java-based games, all scream of an amateur attempt (or, at least one led by people disconnected from the video gaming world).