New N-Gage QD officially announced by Nokia

The Nokia N-Gage has now a little sister: The N-Gage QD. The device has just been announced by Nokia and corrects some of the design issues that the original N-Gage was carrying.

The device specs are :
  Dual-band EGSM 900/GSM1800 or 850/1900 for the US
  HSCSD, GPRS Multislot Class 6 (2+2, 3+1, class B)
  4096-color display (size 176 x 208 pixels)
  Weight: 143 g (with standard battery)
  Dimensions: 118 x 68 x 22 mm, 123cc
  3.4 MB internal memory
  Hot swap MMC-card
  Dedicated Game "Quick launch" key, and Game auto-start when game MMC-Card is inserted.
  Dedicated OK/Select function (was previously on rocker key)
  Full email support (IMAP4, POP3, SMTP, MIME2)
  Instant Messaging with Chat application
  N-Gage Arena launcher software pre-installed to access N-Gage Arena
  XHTML browser

Another good news is that the device can now be hold as a normal mobile phone (no more side-talking...).

The bad news are:
  still no camera
  nothing said about the FM radio support and the MP3 player. Looks like they have been removed (cf this page on AAS)
  no MMC card included in the box

The planned range of prices is expected to be from €99/$99 with a contract to €199/$199 as an unsubsidized, untaxed retail price. The N-Gage QD game deck is expected to be available in May 2004 for Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific and in June 2004 for the Americas. The N-Gage QD will be available in two versions: a GSM 900/1800 variant (Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific) and a GSM 850/1900 variant (Americas).

All games should be fully compatible with both N-Gage and N-Gage QD game decks.

To get more information on the device, check the N-Gage web site.