Another big improvement in the
QD is that Nokia has improved the screen. The new screen is very bright and vibrant. The screen supports 4096 colors at a resolution of 176 X 208 pixels. It does get a little washed out in direct sunlight but that’s kind of typical for portable devices. The screen is a little different than you standard landscape gaming screen as Nokia has retained the Portrait mode from the previous N-Gage. It forced some developers to create their games to play in letterbox mode, wasting about one-third of the screen. This is one of the areas that may annoy some gamers but it really wasn’t that big of a deal to me. Games are games no matter what size the screen is.
The external speaker of the
QD is solid and gets the job done. It’s not something you’re going to be rocking out with. If you really want to get the best audio out of the device you’ll want to use the included head phones. The QD comes with a decent set of ear bud headphones that help pull all of the audio out of the device. I’m not the biggest fan of in ear head phones but the included ones are ok and come with small foam covers to help ease the pain on your ears.
Oh yeah, the
QD is a phone as well and not a bad one at that. The only problem you may have is that when you use the phone you may leave cheek marks on the phone when you use it. The phone comes with Nokia’s Series 60 user interface and a bevy of great cell phone features. I could probably write another page just on the cell phone features but I’ll just say that it supports the usual array of web features, complex musical ring tones (the bane of my existence), and a wide variety of messaging support.
What’s sets the
QD apart from other mobile devices is N-Gage Arena, the universal gaming services that is baked into every device. The system piggy backs on your wireless carrier’s internet connection so as long as you have a phone signal you can play other players online. This is a huge advantage over solutions that require cables, short range infrared connections, and even those that utilize WiFi connections and I think a lot of consumers are overlooking this feature in the QD. The device also supports Bluetooth connections which you can use to play gamers in your immediate area as well as connection to other Bluetooth devices (such as your PC and wireless headsets). My review unit did not come with N-Gage Arena enabled so I wasn’t able to check out if the system works as promised but the concept is solid.
You really can’t have a gaming platform without games and that’s another area that Nokia is working to improve. Nokia has committed themselves to coming out with a host of AAA titles and the games I was provided to sample the unit with were solid and entertaining.
Nokia has done an excellent job with the redesign of the N-Gage and hopefully the new device will be able to step out of the shadow of the original device and won’t get lost in the launch hype of the
Sony PSP and the
Nintendo DS. It’s still hard to call the device perfect but with some minor modifications to the device (shoulder buttons would help tremendously) the device is getting there and Nokia seems committed to making it a success. If you are a gamer and are in the market for a new cell phone you should definitely check out the N-Gage QD.
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Nokia B | The QD is a big step up from the original N-Gage and while it’s not perfect, gamers owe it to themselves to give it a shot if they are in the market for a new cell phone. |
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