N-Gage
The Nokia N-Gage is a mobile telephone and a handheld game system in one unit designed using the Nokia 3650 as a base. It was launched on October 7, 2003.
History
In the early 2000s, gamers were increasingly carrying around both a cell phone and a Game Boy, the most popular handheld game system. Nokia spotted an opportunity to combine these devices into a more handy unit. The company also packed in multiplayer, Internet, and PDA-like features into the system.
Despite the large amount of attention gamers gave the system before it was launched, it has not been as commercially popular as Nokia estimated. Most gamers blame the sales performance on the poor selection of games compared to those available to the handheld-leading Nintendo Game Boy Advance while still costing more than twice as much. In addition to its problems as a game system, it also faces problems as a cell phone. The N-Gage is only carried by one or two mobile phone providers, because current distribution focuses on specialty video game retailers and big-box electronics outlets.
The N-Gage has also been criticized for its clumsy design: to insert a game, users must remove the phone's plastic cover and access the battery compartment. Also, the speaker is in the side edge of the phone, resulting in many mocking it as talking into a "taco phone". Because of this its comfort for longer calls has been criticized.
N-Gage QD
The N-Gage QD is Nokia's successor to the N-Gage. It revises the device's physical design with a more convenient cartridge swapping, and speaker and microphone on the flat side of the device so that calls may be made like a traditional phone. The device retails at a lower price. MP3 playback and USB connectivity options have been removed, probably to cut costs (its initial price was lower than the original version's initial one) and to combat piracy. The hardware specification of the N-Gage QD is the same as the original N-Gage.
N-Gage games
