While I love my Nokia 3650, I've really got to question what Nokia was thinking as it designed the new n-gage phone / media device. I agree with this article, Mercury News | 10/02/2003 | Nokia falls short -- N-Gage destined to get squashed fast, and others that it's just a bad all-around designed device.

Here's what's interesting to me. Nokia prides itself on knowing a local market so well that the hardware they design for that market is a proper fit (e.g., correct use of colors in an Hindi society). So what's it say about our market if Nokia releases poorly-thought-out crappola? For some reason, the American market has never been a priority for the phone makers. We get the nicely designed hand-me downs. When they finally go and design a phone / media device for us, it's like: I'm supposed to rip it open and pull out the battery to put in a new game? I'm supposed to hold it upside my head like a seashell to talk to someone? Oy.