After 1 year of Ngage... Review on Nokia N-Gage

The Ngage has been one of Nokia's foremost experimental models. Internationally, it was quite a fad in Europe though it never got really popular outside gaming circles.

Many of you may not know that the Ngage is a smartphone with its own Symbian software. This is a very unique feature coz having a software operating system allows usage of the phone for multiple purposes.

You can use an Ngage for applications as diverse as gaming, Mp3 playback/ recording, transferring data via memory card, scheduler, PDA functionality with synchronised phoneboook etc. They have even provided a copy-paste function for messageslike a comp! I was really pleased with the features provided, which more than makes up for its unwieldy weight & handling (you have to speak by holding the phone diaginally or just use a handsfree all the time).

Downside: I bought my Ngage when it was not officially launched in India- big mistake. I was very happy with performance in the first few months. Then disaster struck- the phone crashed without any warning. My dealer repaired it successfully the first time by reinstalling the Symbian OS.

However it was always unstable after the repair & inevtably crashed again after a few months. So I barely used the phone for a year. Now it is lying at the Dealer(Fine Collection near Alfa Vile Parle) who is unable to understand & repair despite multiple sincere attempts. Truth is the phone hardware is far to complicated & this time the internal memory is affected.

Hence chances of repairing the unit are slim. If anyone can help, please mail me on hemantuchil@rediffmail.com.

A word of warning- if you plan to buy a second-hand Ngage, make sure you are not given a defective piece.. Many early users were put off by the complicated user interface & plethora of features available, hence many good pieces are also available. However a repaired piece can end up being worthless in months.