[Royal Fool]

Click for the full article.

Another problem we noticed was that menus are generally meant to be navigated by moving around with the directional pad and then clicking down on it to select - a reasonable way of doing things, if clicking on the d-pad wasn't so difficult, usually resulting in moving the cursor off the item you're trying to select. Strangely, Nokia also seems to have reversed the normal functions of the soft keys on the bottom left and right of the screen, so that the left one (under the d-pad) now selects, and the right one exits or goes back; which is not only unintuitive, but quite annoying since it means that selecting menu items (without the useless d-pad click) means taking your fingers off the d-pad.

[...]

What didn't impress the image conscious pub crowd, however, was how the device looks when you make a phone call on it. "It looks like you've got a taco held to your ear," laughed one woman, while another man likened it to a croissant. Others were more blunt - "it makes you look like a twat" being a comment we heard a lot on this particular topic. This may cause headaches for Nokia when it comes to selling the device to the crucial 18-35 demographic - a grouping of people not known for being fond of things that make them look foolish...

It's a pretty good and long review, giving the lowdown on the system in detail.

[Marek]

I love this site. They do a lot to hide any bias and provide very accurate and balanced analysis. Nice read.

[pleto4_ryan]

pfff, that was a big read...but i liked it

Interesting site, haven't been there...

anyway. Some off the flaws (as said) were known for some time. What does grapped my eye is this

Speaking of headaches, our night on the town revealed another major problem with the N-Gage which may, sadly, be insurmountable - namely that quite a few people reported that playing on the device for more than a few minutes gave them sore eyes or a headache. One woman told us that she had to stop playing Tomb Raider after less than fifteen minutes because if gave her a serious headache and a throbbing sensation behind her eyes; "I was really enjoying the game, but I couldn't play it if it's going to cause that every time," she explained.

We can't really speculate on what causes this problem (which we did experience ourselves - I personally found that the device gave serious eye-strain, but originally attributed this to the fact that I'm a contact lens wearer), but it may well be that shoehorning 3D graphics onto a diminutive screen like this just isn't good for people's eyes - forcing them to squint to focus and make out detail on the screen. If so, this is a very serious design flaw with the system.

:eek: YIKES

[twifkak]

gamesindustry.biz rawx. I usually go to them for a quick news & analysis fix.

[Tanukitsune]

Headaches, small screen..
I'm gonna buy one anyway, my mobile phone is broken....
The only game I want is Taito Memories