N-Gage QD

Review - Keri takes a deep breath and evaluates Nokia's second attempt

"No more side talking - Talk the way your mother taught you"

Yes indeedy, no more looking like an idiot when talking on your mobile; in Nokia's own words: we talked, they listened. Or rather, we complained, and didn't buy it, so they sorted it out. And I have to say, it actually looks as though they've done a rather good job of it.

The N-Gage QD has all the useful features of the original model (with a touch of skimping on the mp3 playback, USB port and the radio, resulting in a marginally lower price) yet is noticeably smaller, a better shape, and, thank god, a much more user-friendly device all round, the cartridge slot - or the 'hot swap' as Nokia call it - now located apart from the battery compartment, which means no more opening-up-the-whole-thing-and-taking-out-the-battery milarky: QD lets you just slide the little sim-like cartridges into the slot on the bottom edge of the phone, and access immediate game play, simple as that. And, joy of joys, the ear-piece is on the front! No longer shall the Nokia owning mobile gamer have to slink away to a darkened corner before answering his phone to avoid the notoriously embarrassing 'you're speaking into a taco in public' scenario. The QD is so petite that it actually looks like a normal phone when in call mode, and the easy-to-use functionality for which Nokia are famous makes it a pleasant and handy little gadget. One word of advice though: do look at it properly before making calls. My other half complained of how quiet the speaker level was during calls even when turned up to full volume. I asked him to show me, and yes, it was surprisingly muted; not that surprising though, considering the berk had it the wrong way up. Subtlety is one of the QD's best design features, a grace my dear beloved clearly lacks.

And it is a subtle little minx of a tool. It still looks a little like a mini-GBA, but it's small enough to make it a slightly more portable alternative, being nearly half the size of the Nintendo GBA handheld (albeit closer in scale to the SP model). The newly designed front is compact almost to a fault: anyone with obese fingers might have a bit of a problem dialling or gaming as they mash about four keys with their swollen digits, but fortunately I am of the normal (if slightly stunted) finger size persuasion, and after a couple of minutes no longer found the keypad cramped, and indeed a damn sight easier to use than the circular keypad of my 3650. The new D-pad still offers eight way directional movement, but is smaller and more comfortable on the thumb. The main game keys (5 and 8) have protruding bubbles on them to make them distinct from them the other numbers, and there's now a separate selection key in the form of a tick to make selection from phone menus easier. Call buttons have also moved, being situated at either side of the bottom at the front; the only grievance which occurs with this is that because they fit in so well with the overall design, they're somewhat unnoticeable. A fact I discovered to my panic when (attempting) to answer an incoming call.

With all the handy little extras such as various folders, a screen-shot capture utility, calendar, SMS concatenation (no waiting for the other half of someone's message to never arrive, or getting the second half first), funky orange themed matrix-y menu and stand-by screen, an impressive 10 hours of gaming battery time, Bluetooth, WAP (over GPRS), alarm clock, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, it's all going rather well. But ah, alas, the screen. At 176 x 208 pixels, it's still the same size as its predecessor, and when looking at pictures and even in-game footage, it looks great. The 'brighter backlight' shows up the colours tremendously, and shows off the phone's image capabilities to the full. But the problem is that while it's a decent enough size, one can't quite get over the feeling that it's the wrong way around. To test its gaming abilities, we had a gander at EA titles The Sims Bustin' Out and FIFA 2004, and whilst we encountered no problems on the enjoyment front (due to the good graphics and generally fun game play) the experience was just a teeny bit hampered by the narrowness of the screen. In FIFA, passes along the wing feel limited by only being able to see tiny sections of the pitch, and in Bustin' Out's SimValley town, you can't help but want to 'bust out' of that thin strip of a screen and have a proper look around.