Loud, but we want the games

The N81 has arrived, N-Gage sadly has not.

The n-gage gaming devices from Nokia were never bad. The problem was that the N-Gage phone was a bit difficult to use and that negativity rubbed off on its successor the NGage QD, which actually was a very decent phone for the price, back in 2004.

Now, therefore, Nokia is bringing back N-Gage to the Indian market, and even though the launch of the system has been delayed, this time round NGage will not be device-specific, as it will initially work on certain N-series devices and will eventually filter down through to other Nokia devices.

The flagship model for the new gaming platform—part of Nokia’s strategy to enter the internet services market—will be the Nokia N81. This device was recently unveiled in India, though the gaming platform has been delayed. So Nokia has loaded the device with songs and music videos.

The first impression you have of this phone when you play music through it however, is that it’s loud, very loud in fact. It can fill up a large room. But the ‘loudness’ does not really affect sound quality as dramatically as one would expect. Of course, one could wonder how the Finnish company managed to shove in a powerful enough speaker driver into a phone the size of a normal phone. But they have.

While you can play the music loudly, it does take as dramatic a toll on battery life as one would expect. But, as with any device, the louder you play the music, the more energy it consumes. And you praise your lucky stars that you can switch the music off at the flick of a switch. The N81 is also designed to play games, and we have tried a few. Let us put it like this: we cannot wait for N-Gage to come back. The Nokia N81 is available for Rs 29,249 and is available in retail stores right now.

As an added incentive, Nokia is loading this model of the N81 with Sholay, so you can while away boredom watching the old Bollywood hit.