So this is what Nokia should have done with the N-Gage. Rather than just have a poorly designed phone that tries to do too much, they should have done what Samsung’s done with their Mobile Gamepad, which makes it possible to turn a cellphone into a reasonable approximation of a Game Boy rather than having to tap away on a tiny keypad. Sprint sent us one of these, along with one of Samsung’s new VGA1000 cameraphones, to check out, and the idea is that when you want to play a game, you just pop your phone into it (it only works with Samsung’s VGA1000, A600, and A620 handsets). The controller isn’t as responsive as we would like, but honestly, the biggest problem is the games themselves. We only checked out a smattering of randomly downloaded Java-based games for the VGA1000, and while the phone certainly does have a nice, bright 65,000 color display, a lot of the games looked way too small on the screen to actually be playable for more than a few minutes. Ephemeral entertainment may be the point of having games on a cellphone, but we had to take it on faith that we were actually playing Ms. Pac Man as opposed to Mr. Pac Man or Pac Man Jr.
Either way, the concept behind the Mobile Gamepad (pictured at right, with the A600) is a good one, and we especially like the flexibility it gives the phone. The rest of the VGA1000 isn’t bad either. It takes decent pictures for a non-Japanese cameraphone, and even has a built-in flash which kills the battery, but can make all the difference in the world when it comes to getting a decent photo.
