Entry-level N-Gage device

Haggisheed, your best bet is probably ebay. I just had a look on Ebay UK and there were many unlocked N73 phones with final prices of about 100 pounds (150 euros).

I know they're second hand but it's the best way to get the lowest possible price for a Next Gen compatible phone.

Germany has its own ebay so it should be fairly easy to find a buyer near you.

Haggisheed wrote:Hi everyone,
I owned an N-Gage and QD which I really loved but I moved on to a 6680 and a Nintendo DS when the games support died. I'd love to get one of the new N-Gage compatible phones but so far it seems there is no real entry-level device available - my N-Gage cost only �1 with a pretty cheap contract and my QD was sim-free for under �150.

The N-Gage and QD weren't that cheap when they launched. The launch price of the N-Gage in Europe was �299 sim-free, and the QD launched sim-free for about �250, both including taxes.

The main reason their prices dropped so much was because the sales were very disappointing. Nokia said they wanted to sell over 6 million in the first two years, but they only managed to sell 2 million in that period.

This isn't going to happen with Next Gen N-Gage because millions of people are buying the compatible phones anyway. The N95 has sold more in six months than the N-Gage and QD did in two years.

Here in Germany we are tied to 2-year contracts and I can't afford to go out and spend �300 now on a new phone.

If you get a phone on contract, you're basically buying the phone in installments on credit. That's why more expensive contract phones have higher monthly fees.

Have you thought about actually buying a new phone on installments directly? Many electronics shops let you buy expensive equipment with monthly payments, often with no interest.

Is there any plan for a more affordable device?

This is an interesting topic. The N73 is one of the older S60 3rd Edition phones, and officially Next Gen N-Gage compatible.

Because of this, in theory almost all S60 3rd Edition phones should also be Next Gen compatible, including cheaper devices like the E50 (which you can buy sim-free and brand new for about 200 euros).

In reality, for some reason Nokia hasn't added many phones to the compatibility list. However, they have said they intend to add more phones to the list, although it's unclear whether they mean they'll add more current models or whether they just mean future models will be added.

Having said all this, it's important to note that the launch price of new S60 devices is going down all the time. The 6120 Classic is my favourite S60 phone so far, it has the same computing power as a N95, but it had a sim-free launch price of 250 euros (plus taxes). This is lower than any previous S60 model, and next year we might see even cheaper S60 models launching.

Hi Krisse,
Thanks very much for your detailed reply. The day after I posted I was walking through town and saw the Vodafone shop offering brand new sim-free N73s for only €189 so I'll definitely be checking that out. Obviously more interesting if it is the music edition as the colour is nicer and it would have the 2Gb memory card included (I hope). The E50 seems a good option too - providing I can get one with a camera of course. I'll let you know how things work out - my old 6630 is currently on eBay as I type.
Haggisheed (aka Neil)

Haggisheed, sounds like some pretty good deals if you can get a new sim-free N73 for under €200.

Hopefully the N73 price will go down everywhere so that everyone has it as the "entry-level" option for the new platform.

Haggisheed wrote:Hi Krisse,
The E50 seems a good option too - providing I can get one with a camera of course. I'll let you know how things work out - my old 6630 is currently on eBay as I type.
Haggisheed (aka Neil)

Sorry, I should have been clearer: The E50 is NOT compatible with the Next Gen N-Gage. Technically it should be because the hardware is better than the N73, but Nokia haven't allowed this to happen (yet).

The only compatible phones so far are: N73, N81, N81 8GB, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB

There's now an AAN article all about this topic:

http://www.allaboutngage.com/features/item/Next_Gen_N-Gage_on_a_Budget.php

I think it really is just a matter of time until Nokia bring out N-Gage on more and possibly cheaper phones.
With them having invested so much effort in a platform like this, I think it's not in their interest to reduce this to only a few phones 😉
I suspect the effort time and moneywise to assure compatibility of games and the application is just too much to handle if you want to launch the whole thing with more than "just" 7 or 8 phones and still be ahead enough of competition. I guess that over time, Nokia will want to have this with every possible device fromlaunch since this can only be in their own interest.

Another thing to consier, though, is that apparently, the aim of the whole platform is also to provide games with graphics much better than anything done before, so right now, non n-Series phones probably don't meet the requirements for the fancier 3D games. This obviously does not disqualify them from running some card deck game, but I personally would give devices that cannot run all games a lower priority. Also, The n-Series itself is Nokia's multimedia flagship, so I think it makes sense for these phones to be the ones to launch N-Gage with - no matter how sad my bank account looks at me 😉

I think we'll just have to give Nokia a bit more time until they really get N-Gage going - I'm sure by then, phones that are a bit cheaper even at launch will be compatible. Finger's crossed...

jennifr wrote:Another thing to consier, though, is that apparently, the aim of the whole platform is also to provide games with graphics much better than anything done before, so right now, non n-Series phones probably don't meet the requirements for the fancier 3D games.

That's just not true, Nseries S60 models aren't particularly powerful, in fact in many cases Nseries models are much less powerful. Nseries is a marketing brand more than anything else, it doesn't really tell you anything about the phone's computing power. Don't let the Nseries hype fool you, it's just a cool brand that lets them charge a bit more than they should.

For example the 6120, 6110, 6290 and 5700 are all much more powerful than the N73, they have processors running at 369mhz instead of the N73's rather slow 200mhz.

The only phones with genuinely superior graphics are the N93, N95 and E90 because they all have 3D acceleration hardware, but the E90 isn't even in the N-gage platform, while non-accelerated phones like the N73 and N81 are.

There really is no technical logic to the choice of phones at all, whatever reason people come up with doesn't fit the phones Nokia have chosen.

This obviously does not disqualify them from running some card deck game, but I personally would give devices that cannot run all games a lower priority.

You're severely underestimating the graphical power of S60 phones.

All S60 phones, even the very first ones from 2003, are perfectly capable of running full 3D games.

The original N-Gage was a standard S60 1st edition phone with much poorer hardware than modern S60s, yet it could run 3D PlayStation games such as Tomb Raider ( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WVkE2_D53Wc ), Pandemonium ( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=17OzoW2UGPc ) and Tony Hawk Pro Skater ( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxzYOluReAA ).

All the latest S60 phones run far faster than the N-Gage, and have far more memory too, so their graphics can be even better.

I recently heard that Nokia is re-launching a N-gage gaming phone. google and you will find lots of info on this.

devarshi84 wrote:I recently heard that Nokia is re-launching a N-gage gaming phone. google and you will find lots of info on this.

You don't need to google it, you can look at All About N-Gage!

http://www.allaboutngage.com/

There's no single gaming phone, it's a platform across Nokia's S60 smartphones.

You can play the games on the Nokia N73, N81, N81 8GB, N93, N93i, N95 and N95 8GB, with more phones to be added to the list as time goes by.