In our last poll, we asked you which current S60 3rd Edition model you most wanted added to the new N-Gage platform. Rather surprisingly, the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of the Nokia E90 Communicator, a business-oriented phone. Click on the headline to see the full story including all the results.
Read on in the full article.
"a 3D graphics acceleration chip (which at the moment does precisely nothing)"
Well, it does - at least on the N95. MIDlets using M3G ARE 3D accelerated - I've tested quite a few of them for my WM / Symbian MIDlet Bible. I don't think the situation would be worse on the E90 than on the N95 - after all, almost the same chipset, drivers and (Java supporting-wise at least) operating system support.
So are the very few native 3D games.
I chose the E90. Basically, for its screen size, keypad size(comfortability), and durability(quality built).
I chose the E90. Basically, for its screen size
The trouble is the screen is a non-standard resolution, so the N-Gage games wouldn't necessarily be able to use it. They would probably end up using the external screen rather than the main one.
So are the very few native 3D games.
I thought only the 3D games that actively use the 3D hardware (Global Race and the System Rush demo) are accelerated, the other 3D native stuff (Snakes for example) does it through software. I'm not a programmer though so I could be wrong.
Whatever the case though, I take your point that there are at least a few games which do use the chip.
It's just such an odd situation. Surely a small number of Java and native titles can't be what Nokia had in mind when they added the chip to the E90. They must have had some more important purpose in mind.
It would make sense if they used the same chip's TV Out ability, that would fit with the E90's business reputation because it would make it easy to give presentations at meetings on a large screen. But the E90 doesn't have TV Out.
Just confirms to me that Nokia's mindset with regards to separating their product lines (business handset, multimedia handset etc etc) is artificial and out of step with what consumers want. Yes, people with productivity handsets want multimedia and games, and those with multimedia handsets want QWERTY form factors and other elements of the business handsets (like build quality for one).
Like NZtechfreak said. The E90 isn't a "business-oriented phone", whatever Nokia's marketing department may choose to call it. It's simply the most feature-rich S60 phone with a QWERTY keyboard, and happens also to have some business-oriented software. Someone who wants QWERTY and built-in GPS in a Symbian phone has no other choice.
Or put another way, I bought my E61i (and voted for it) because I wanted QWERTY, not because I'm a busy executive. I use it for email, web browsing, and music. It does the latter 90% as well as the "multimedia-oriented" N-series - I use OggPlay rather than the Nokia player for greater format compatibility anyway, and I don't miss the dedicated buttons. I play games on it occasionally, and more and better games would be great.
These things are Turing-powerful computers with similar hardware capabilities and identical software catalogues. Market segmentation may avoid confusing consumers but it's still artificial. And if anyone is buying a phone specifically for the games, even if it's a "consumer-oriented" phone, they're a bit confused anyway.
Lets face facts here. It's just plain bonkers that the 6120 doesn't support nGage, regardless of what other phones came wherever in your poll. The 6120 has and does sell absolutely shedloads, and would HUGELY boost the whole nGage platform. I mean, think of all the tens of thousands (at least) of extra people that would fork out for nGage games! Seriously, Nokia make some EXCEEDLINGLY stupid decisions occasionally, and this one should be legendary, if the 6120 doesn't go nGage live VERY soon. The handset is more than powerful enough, 3D chipset or not. Anyone playing Quake on the phone can attest to that. What's more it doesn't need to canibalize N series sales at all - I mean they've already differentiated in other ways anyway, and in any case sales of NSeries and the 6120 are what they are before anyone has NGage, so that doesn't need to change anything radically.
Seriously, the tech industry is littered with mind blowingly stupid decisions made by management. Nokia - let this not be one of them...please.
P.S. AAS - are you going to be letting Nokia know the results of this poll? I sincerely hope this wasn't just for our benefit. Tell your Nokia contacts, or this has all been a rather pointless exercise! Us readers don't have Nokia contacts, you lot do!
What's all this fuss about 'non-standard' screen resolution?
I've done a fair bit of opengl(and opengles) programming (mainly in C/C++) and, although it's been a while, IIRC, there's nothing to stop an application supporting *any* resolution apart from short-sightedness on the part of developers (ie they hardwire a resolution into the application).
If it's a more inherent limitation - ie a particular game just doesn't apply to a certain aspect ratio (I can't think of anything) - then what's to stop developers from just setting the viewport to whatever does work and centering it, displaying black (or whatever) on the rest? It wouldn't be ideal, but better than nothing.
...or perhaps I'm missing something...perhaps a(nother!) Java limitation (never used Java, so I don't know)?
Max.
ajck wrote:Seriously, Nokia make some EXCEEDLINGLY stupid decisions occasionally, and this one should be legendary
Indeed. It's is *so* stupid that one has to wonder if there isn't a good reason that we're missing.
P.S. AAS - are you going to be letting Nokia know the results of this poll?
Well, it can't hurt to shout louder, but one would hope that they (Nokia marketting bods) actually read the premier news site for their phones. ...one would hope...
While I agree that it would make sense to implement N-Gage support for E90, I think this poll was quite silly. All you found was that "out of actively-commenting AAS readers who like games and don't own a compatible N-Gage device, E90 owners are in majority".
That's far from the conclusion that implementing N-Gage support for E90 would bring the greatest benefit to the people of earth (or Nokia shareholders).
Well even if the poll question was 'Which device should have <put your desired killer feature here> ?' ,E90 would have won anyways :P.
1. The E90 result was a big surprise (at least to some of us) because the E90 costs such a stupendously huge amount of money to buy that it didn't seem likely that so many voters would own one (and if they don't own one why vote for it?). The 6120 seemed much more likely to win the vote. Very few people outside businesses would be willing to spend �800 to �900 on a mobile phone, no matter how good it is. If nothing else, the price alone makes the E90 a niche item. For the same price as an E90 you could buy about three or four 6120s.
2. Yes, Nokia does indeed read this site, one of the higher up people in N-Gage (who shall remain nameless) told Rafe personally that they regularly read All About N-Gage. Nokia's official N-Gage blog also frequently links to this site in their posts (and they've linked to our last couple of polls too).
3. The poll is as good as it can be when it is passive and the voters are self-selecting, and should never be taken as representative. Unless you pay a large amount of money for a professional company to do a demographically-balanced active survey, there's no way to ever say a poll is scientific and representative. In short, this poll is largely meant as a bit of fun, but also meant to see what the opinions of AAS/AAN readers are. (Of course most S60 owners never see AAS, or even realise they own a Symbian phone, or even know the word "Symbian".)
4. The non-standard screen size problem applies to native Symbian S60 games (which is what N-Gage games are too), which are written in C++. The main point of N-Gage is to reduce the hassle of mobile game development to a minimum without compromising access to the phone's computing hardware. If Nokia start saying that games have to be 240x320, 320x240 AND some totally weird resolution that only a tiny number of phones actually support, then the weird resolution is going to feel like a hassle to the developers, and put publishers off the platform.
The extra wide screen of the E90 might require extra amounts of artwork and level design, plus perhaps more playtesting too, but without the userbase to justify it as relatively few people will own an E90 (or any phone at that price level). The 6120 on the other hand will probably sell many millions, so it would have the userbase to justify N-Gage support, and it uses the standard QVGA screensize.
Thanks Krisse for your reply!
You made me reconsider my quickly-written statement: "While I agree that it would make sense to implement N-Gage support for E90..." To clarify, it was just a polite prefix for my statement about the silliness of the poll methodology, nothing more. I am in no way whatsoever linked with Nokia N-Gage development or decision-making. Hope I didn't cause any confusion.
cheers,
- tommi
Don't worry Tommi, you're completely right, this kind of poll doesn't really prove anything about the opinions of a wider audience. It would be crazy to make a business decision based on a poll like this.
However, I'd hope that articles and polls on this topic might make Nokia's N-Gage people look again at their sales figures for S60 devices, which IS a representative source of data.
For example, I know Nokia doesn't publish exact numbers for particular models, but if I had to guess I'd say the 6120 is going to greatly outsell the N93 and may even have done so already. It's had excellent reviews across the board, AAS's traffic data shows our 6120 review STILL gets more hits than any model except the N95, it's very small (which is a big selling point right now) and it's a fraction of the price of other smartphones. I wouldn't be surprised if the 6120 eventually becomes the best-selling smartphone in the world, as it pushes all the right buttons for the mass market in a way that no other model does right now.
For these reasons and others, it seems odd to include the N93 in N-Gage but not the 6120, when Nokia is obviously positioning N-Gage as a competitor to cheap mass market Java gaming.
I could imagine a Java gamer switching to the 6120, but I couldn't imagine a Java gamer switching to the N93.
well e90 is kinda da business version of n95
i found it gr8 and i still hope nokia updates its e90 firmware 4 de better
Unregistered wrote:well e90 is kinda da business version of n95
i found it gr8 and i still hope nokia updates its e90 firmware 4 de better
I don't find it has any inherent features that make it more suitable for business than any other S60 phone. It ships with some s/w that adds some functionality, but not a whole lot - I'm thinking of quickoffice, of course. I actually can't think of anything else it has that justifies a 'business' label. Oh, right - you can get some Microsoft Exchange functionality, and Blackberry gets a mention too. I guess that might justify it for some, but I would have thought such things are available for other S60 phones too.
The main differentiator I've noticed since I've had mine, is more to do with what you can't get, rather than what you do/can get.
Am I missing something?