Home » Mobile Phone Reviews » Nokia NGage May 13, 2008

Nokia NGage Review

First Impressions

I had thought long and hard about buying this handset, I had heard so many opinions and read so many reviews both good and bad that I was in two minds as to actually buy it. I went into a big chain store who had it advertised for £99 not really expecting to get it for that price, I thought they would be out of stock so I was surprised when they had them in stock. The salesman had one so I had a play with it and I was still undecided so I decided to be talked into it by the promise of a 14 day change your mind guarantee. When I turned my phone on for the first time I was amazed, both by the things it could do and the applications it could run, this was one phone I couldn’t wait to start playing with.

Nokia NGage

Size & Dimensions

Features

What's In the Box

Nokia Ngage Box

Design

The first thing you will notice about this handset is the shape; it has indeed been compared to a taco. The calling function is rather awkward as the speaker is on the side, making it I found a bit embarrassing to use in public. I also found that the sound quality during a call was not too good. The handset is designed for two-handed use particularly during gaming, with the traditional keys on the right and a round four way (becomes eight way during gaming) joystick on the left. Above the joystick you have the green call button, which is easily recognisable. The red end call button is placed above the keyboard, while under the joystick are the music player buttons. The keys were not hard to get used to during texting as they were a nice size and a nice shape, they were also I found well spaced with a nice red backlight. As with most nokias you can buy exchangeable fascias, which change the image of your phone or are handy if it becomes scratched.

Nokia NGage Held

Menu Structure

The menu does take a bit of getting used to at first as there as so many options to choose from, but once mastered it becomes second nature. You have a choice of having a grid menu structure or a list; the grid structure is the default, with easy to use icons such as contacts, tools, messaging and media for example.

Contacts

Depending on what type and how big a memory you have selected there is room for an endless number of entries in your contacts folder; there are eight fields to add to such as email, address and fax. There is an option to store a photo to your contacts as well as a text note. There are also twenty voice dials and an option for quick dial. Caller groups also feature.

Messaging

You can send SMS, MMS and email messages from this handset. Pop3, imap4 and also smpt are supported so there is a big choice of messaging options. The MMS were easy to send and easy to use as was text messaging and I didn’t have a problem with any of the forms of messaging.

Call Logs

The call logs menus consist of lists of missed calls, outgoing calls and their dates and times etc.

Media

In this menu you will find applications such as the inbuilt real player, the radio and also the image gallery. The images are displayed as thumbnails and you can do such things as view, rotate and delete etc.

Calendar

The calendar has an alarm facility for to do lists and alarms, it has a monthly view and just three categories, anniversary, memo and meeting.

Screenshots

The NGage has the screenshot facility, which means you can take a screenshot of your display and mms it to another phone; apart from this function there is no other real use for it apart from showing off your wallpaper.

Nokia NGage Screenshots

Tools

The tools folder consists of various tools including the application manager (invaluable) for finding and managing all your installed applications and finding out how much memory they take up and the file details etc.

Connectivty

Blue tooth features heavily on this phone, enabling two people to play multi player games together, or to transfer data between the phone and a pc and vice versa. The blue tooth worked well and was easy to set up and activate.

Ringtones

You have a choice of the standard pre installed tones or using your own in the following file formats.

Music Player

This player supports the following file types, AAC and MP3, with aac being the smaller file format I used this as my main source of music file format. On a 32MB MMC card you can store up to thirty minutes of MP3 format but up to one hour in AAC format without losing any quality. The music files are transferred using the supplied nokia audio manager pc software. This installed smoothly as was quick and easy to use. For transferring images or other files etc the drag and drop method is probably the easiest way to do this. The supplied headphones were of a good quality and the sound was excellent, the earphones were also comfortable to use. There is a shortcut button to start the music player, which is situated under the joystick. In the sales box is also an audio cable to enable you to record music from a compatible stereo source. The stereo radio has a twenty-channel memory with an integrated recorder, which records In the AAC file format. Reception on this was really good.

Nokia NGage Front

Games Player

The games for this unit are bought on pre recorded mmc cards, which fit in the back of the unit. The bad thing is that every time you want to play a different game you have to take the back off and remove the current memory card and replace it with the one that you want. Even though the screen is small it is surprisingly easy to play games. With the addition of blue tooth up to four people can play the same game at once. There is a long list of games available with more being added every month, the games suit all tastes from racing games to shoot em ups to puzzle games the list is growing all the time. There is also a huge choice of java games available, to either download via wap or to download to the pc and then transfer to the phone via the supplied usb cable.

Nokia NGage Held

Media

The amount of games, media and applications for this handset are far too numerous to list, but the fun you can have with changing wallpapers, creating logos and ring tones are endless. The applications, which are readily available on the Internet, are another source of customising your phone. I downloaded an application that let me expand the menu colour scheme from three colours to nine, you can also download browsers, ebooks and movies and many many more things, shopping lists even!

Nokia NGage Side

The Display

The screen has a standard nokia display of 4096 colours, which is 30*42mm. This is a nice size for playing games and viewing images etc and displays up to six lines of text. I also found the display to be bright with crisp colours.

Memory

The handset comes complete with a 32mb mmc card which is used to store music or games or indeed any data from the phone. Additional mmc cards are available to expand the memory if needed, or you can buy the official games, which come on an mmc card. There is also a 3.4 MB built in memory, which is used to share such things as contact data, calendar, images, and messages and add on applications.

Battery Life & Signal Strength

The battery is quoted as having a standby of up to 200 hours, however this reduces significantly if playing the games or using the music player. With normal usage I found the battery to be quite good, and 20 minutes or so of playing the games a day resulted in the battery lasting around three to four days. The battery takes a short while to be fully charged, the quoted time of one hour and thirty-five minutes is about right. I found I had really good signal strength and I didn’t drop a single call. Because of the sideways way of speaking the call clarity was not good, for me or for the person on the other end, but when using the headphones you could hear and be heard clearly.

Nokia NGage Back

Summary

Despite the size of this handset and the poor call quality, I would recommend this phone. Not however for the price it was when it was first launched but the price I paid for it at the time was just £99, a bargain, but it has been on offer for just £49.99 on the Internet, but was sold out within the day. The amount of features this handset boasts are too many to list fully, but this is a handset that would keep anyone amused for a time. The gameplay is really good as is the inbuilt music player; the only facility it seems to be lacking is a camera. The prices on the games are a bit on the steep side but we have recently seen a price fall in these so maybe the games themselves will become more popular. I don’t think this is a phone just aimed at the youth of today but a phone that anybody can and will enjoy.