There's a bittersweet quality about the new Nokia N-Gage QD, the radically redesigned follow-up to the original N-Gage. Yes, it's far better than the original; yes, it fixes many of the original's problems; no, it's still not very good.

The first N-Gage was a large taco-shaped gadget that combined a tri-band phone, a gaming machine, an FM radio, and an MP3 player. Large, oddly-shaped, and poorly designed, it became the machine that tech writers loved to kick around. With the announcement of the QD, certainly some were hoping that Nokia would get everything right and earn some good reviews. Probably even more were hoping that it would be another disaster. The result, though, is neither. The QD, which runs the Series 60 version of the Symbian OS 6.0, fixes many problems with the original, improving the design and removing extraneous features. But even with many defects fixed, the QD is neither a good phone nor a good gaming machine, suggesting that the concept itself is flawed.


The front of the smaller, thinner Nokia N-Gage QD.

The first N-Gage was a tri-band phone, but the QD is merely a dual mode (GSM 850/1900 in the Americas and GSM 900/1800 in Europe). One of the most glaring (and laugh-getting) design flaws of the original was that the phone speaker and mouthpiece were on the side, forcing you to hold the N-Gage sideways when speaking on it with the phone jutting away from your head. The QD fixes that, but the result is no picnic either. Without the standard phone contouring, it can be hard to know where to hold the phone when speaking. We found that the phone was lined up best for listening when one of the top points was poking into the top of our ear, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Most of the time, in our testing, we instead spoke on the QD using the included earbuds. They gave excellent sound but they're only practical for home use, when you're not regularly taking the QD out of a pocket or purse.


The top of the N-Gage QD. Ports for headphones and charging are located here .

The QD has slimmed down quite a bit, compared to the original. It measures 4.65 x 2.68 x .87 inches versus 5.26 x 2.74 x 0.8 inches for the first version, and weighs 5.05 ounces. That makes it light compared to the original, but huge compared to most cell phones. It fits in a jeans pocket, but not comfortably. The QD offers 10 hours of standby or gaming time, but phone calls will eat away at the battery faster.

The QD seems targeted at young men, and it's impossible to think of anyone else toting it around. While gamers will like the advances made to this model, we think they'd be happier carrying both a phone and a Game Boy Advance SP. The directional keypad has been improved to give it better responsiveness, and it no longer doubles as a Select button when pushed. Now, a new button marked with a check mark sits just below the keypad and lets you select things. The numbered buttons on the QD's right also have better responsiveness and are easier to push. The 5 and 7 buttons are the main game controller buttons (functioning like the A and B buttons on a Game Boy) and so they have a different look, with orange writing instead of black, to make them easier to find. When gaming, we found the QD too small to hold comfortably, and wished that it had shoulder buttons, as a Game Boy does, so that we wouldn't have to root around for the correct key so often.

Swapping games has been much improved with the QD. One of the original N-Gage's biggest flaws was that you had to remove the back cover and the battery to access the MMC game slot. A new slot on the bottom of the QD makes it easy to hot swap games. Also, games start up automatically when a new game card is inserted. We found the start-up time to be a little slow, perhaps due to the corporate ID screens that first display when a game starts. The QD is backwards compatible with all existing N-Gage games.


A rear view of the N-Gage QD. Note the new slot at the bottom for hot-swapping game cards.

Oddly, the N-Gage's small backlit screen hasn't improved at all with this release. It still measures 1.6 x 1.4 inches, has a 208 x 176 pixel resolution, and contains 4,096 colors. That's less than the Game Boy Advance and far less than the TapWave Zodiac (read our review), with its 3.8 inch, 480 x 320 pixel, 65,536 color display. It has a vastly smaller collection of games than the Game Boy does. That means it offers gamers kludgy controls, a small screen, and fewer games to choose from. That more than makes up for the convenience of having your phone and game machine in the same gadget.

Part of the allure of the QD is that it connects you to other gamers, something the Game Boy can't do without wires. It has Bluetooth built in, so that you can play against friends nearby. It also connects to the new N-Gage arena, a virtual zone where you can play against people from around the globe. Many games have multiplayer options.

The N-Gage knows a few tricks besides gaming. It can import Outlook calendars and contacts, but only if your computer has Bluetooth. While the original N-Gage came with a USB cable, the slimmer QD doesn't, so it can only connect via Bluetooth. That certainly makes the date book feature far less usable, as many people don't have Bluetooth.

If you're looking for the FM radio and MP3 player that appeared in the original N-Gage, you won't find them here. They've been trimmed so that that QD can focus on the essentials. We think a camera would be a great addition for the next release.

The QD's price has also been trimmed. While the original N-Gage listed for $299, the QD lists for $199, a price that includes Tony Hawk's Pro Skater from most retailers. A Nokia representative told us that stores will soon sell the QD without an included game for $179. It costs $99 with new phone service.

Hard-core gamers might be sufficiently impressed by the N-Gage QD's online multiplayer options and slimmed down appearance to give it a try. For the rest of us, though, perhaps the third version of the N-Gage will be the one that puts it all together correctly.

--Games: The Sims Bustin' Out, Ashen, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004