gdgt

I just finished talking to a good a friendwho always made fun of me for buying both N-Gages and it made me think about how the N-Gage could possibly just have been way ahead of its time.

Think about it. Part of the reason why the iPhone took off so well was because of games. People today are playing more and more games on their phones. The N-Gage did the exact same thing but, unfortunately, didn't make the cut.

The year was 2003 and the 1st generation N-Gage came out for a price of $299. This was a time in the US where people were just getting used to their first set of FREE phones. No one would dare pay that much for a phone. The funny thing is, the phone is actually pretty cheap since that $299 price was for the unlocked phone and no contract.

Then there's the online capabilities of the N-Gage. Because the N-Gage didn't have a wifi card built in, it could only use GPRS. With the high prices of mobile plans back then no one wanted to pay the extra $30 (or whatever it cost back then) just so they can play games online. Lastly, barely any websites back then had a mobile optimized webpage making a data plan even more useless. It's also important to note that people wouldn't even pay the $5 extra for 200 texts (in which incoming texts didn't count against you!).

If people got their hands on an N-Gage they'd also complain that it's too complicated. The S60 smartphone OS was too much to handle for most people who are used to the black and white displays of their simple candybar Nokias. The S60 also had applications but didn't have a centralized marketplace like the iOS App Store. Lastly, it's worthy to note that S60, back in 2003, did have a copy and paste feature! iOS didn't have that feature until 2009.

I will concede that the 1st generation N-Gage was pretty ugly and the taco-talking didn't appeal to many people but the N-Gage QD was a beautiful device but came too late.

Looking back, I really do think that the N-Gage was just ahead of its time. It had the games, the hardware (for back then), capabilities, and connectivity. But because people back then were not prepared for a smartphone and the cost of owning a smartphone, it didn't succeed.

By the way, I will defend that the N-Gage had decent real hardcore games. I'll state over and over again that Pandemonium is much better than Angry Birds.

Oh and if you're wondering, I did enjoy these two phones very much when I owned them. I gave them up because I need a tri-band phone and the N-Gage were not tri-band.