The Nokia N-Gage QD, seen above, was my main phone for about a year, until I switched to the 6630 a couple of weeks ago. One could say that I got to know it well. 
The N-Gage, unfortunately, has an extremely bad reputation, much of it caused by the initial version (before the QD), which had two huge problems: “sidetalking” (which, as someone at the time put it, “makes you look like a dork”) and having the game cards be inserted below the battery (due to which changing games meant turning off the phone, opening the battery compartment, removing the battery, and so on). Those two flaws were corrected with the N-Gage QD, but by then it was too late - Nokia could have released the best gaming phone in the world and it would still have failed.
But, to me, it was a great phone, though I admit that I used it more as a “generic” Series 60 phone than for playing N-Gage games. Of these, I spent a lot of time with Pocket Kingdom, and Pathway to Glory is still one of the best turn-based tactical games I’ve played on any platform - including current PCs and consoles.
However, as I said, I used it most of the time for Series 60 applications - Opera for browsing, Profimail for email (and it was workable, not just a “gimmick”), Mobipocket for ebooks (and believe me, I read a lot) and some quick Java or Symbian games, playable in short sessions, like standing on a queue. Oh, and emulators. Game Boy, ZX Spectrum, NES… Almost every game for those platforms was playable on the N-Gage.
And there was the D-pad. That’s probably the thing I miss the most in my 6630 - with the N-Gage, I could play action games, while now I’m restricted to strategy, puzzles and such. I haven’t even bothered with installing emulators on the 6630 - I tried one, and while everything was faster and smoother, I simply couldn’t find a way to confortably play any action games, other than perhaps Arkanoid / Breakout clones.
What didn’t I like in the N-Gage? Well, it could be faster. It’s as fast as the 7650 or the 3650, but for some applications or emulated games it simply wasn’t enough. It could have had more memory. And, for gaming, a “landscape” screen works better than a “portrait” one, though that was a Series 60 limitation at the time. And I have to admit that always having a camera with me (on the 6630) is very nice.
It speaks volumes, though, that, to me, the 6630 (a much more advanced phone, supposedly) is simply a faster N-Gage with a camera, but with a horrible directional pad.
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