Tech Throwback: Nokia N-Gage

I like to take a look at where I’ve been to evaluate where Im going. Technology is cyclical after all… wait no its not. That said I still like all the feels that come rushing back like a flood of nostalgia every time I get my hand on the tech I grew up with. Im going to go back periodically and take a looking at the stuff that used to blow our hair back and get our minds rolling. Some of these device blew up and changed the world, some where ahead of their time and some just fell flat and became colossal failures. Today I’ve got my hands on the old Nokia N-Gage

Around 2000, gamers increasingly carried both mobile phones and handheld game consoles. Nokia spotted an opportunity to combine these devices into one unit. Nokia announced in November 2002 that they would develop the N-Gage, a device that integrated these two devices. Instead of using cables, multiplayer gaming was accomplished with Bluetooth or the Internet (via the N-Gage Arena service). The N-Gage also included MP3 and Real Audio/Video playback and PDA-like features into the system.

The original phone’s taco-shaped design was considered clumsy: to insert a game, users had to remove the phone’s plastic cover and remove the battery compartment as the game slot was next to it. Another clumsy feature was the speaker and microphone being located on the side edge of the phone. This often resulted in many describing it as talking into a “taco phone” or “Sidetalking”, or simply that they had one very large ear, because the user held the edge of the phone against the cheek in order to talk into it. Usual for a phone, but unusually for a game system, it had a screen taller than it was wide, with a size of 2.1′ and resolution of 176 X 208, giving an aspect ratio of 11:13; most televisions and portable game screens were 4:3.

We all thought the N-Gage would define the mobile gaming market: a device that can serve as a mobile game platform, a tri-band GSM phone, an MP3 player, an FM tuner, an e-mail client, and a personal information manager. Unfortunately, several design flaws severely limited the device’s usefulness, and t the N-Gage went down in history as a poorly implemented great idea.

Hands On 15 years Later

The original lithium battery on this device has failed but i was able to find a fresh replacement at a pretty reasonable price on eBay. It powers up just like you remember all Nokias did, it has that heavy toy feel as well. I got approximately 6 hours of game time and a few hours of music time. When I spent 5 hours playing games and listening to music, however, the battery died shortly after.

Its Got Games

The main purpose for this was to open up the mobile gaming market. We were all dieing to play video games where ever we went in the early century but their just wasn’t the options. Game boys and Sega had games but for a young adult wanted more those were for kids. I’ve been able to locate a copy of Civilization II ans Spider-man 2 and have been playing them all day. The N-Gage is the first place I played Civilization and started a long hobby over many tech devices since. Snake, some Xmen game and a few Tom Clancy games where available as well. Im sure as you all remember the games all came on a MMC card. I tried to condense all the games to one larger card but have been unsuccessful. Playing games on the N-Gage is kinda difficult, mostly because the buttons designed for a phone, are not well-suited for gaming.

The Final Thought

It was a leap forward, this was the device that got people thinking my phone can do more, it can be more then just a phone. The PDA functions and bluetooth synchronization lead to a big main stream increase in data being held on a phone. Before this I would only keep 40 or so contacts in my Nokia phones because they wouldn’t transfer from phone to phone. You have to re enter them all over again. I enjoyed my few hours with the phone but finished through everything it offered in a few hours and could imagine needing to revisit it again.