???? – 2006retired
Lego Mindstorms
“It had no main model to build — so you built everything.”
“A phone that dared to be a Game Boy, and a taco that dared to be loved”
Released on 7 October 2003, the N-Gage was Nokia's game deck: a mobile phone and handheld game system in one, running Symbian with games on MultiMediaCards. It tried to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance with the perk of calls and SMS in an all-in-one device. With over 50 games from major third-party publishers and the online N-Gage Arena community, it promised a genuinely social portable gaming future.
The world wasn't quite ready: the buttons fought gamers, and the sideways design earned it the immortal nickname taco phone. Nokia responded with the QD redesign less than a year later, fixing many criticized issues, but it couldn't turn things around, and the N-Gage was discontinued in 2006. It left behind a beloved, slightly ridiculous idea that the phone in your pocket could also be a console.
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“It had no main model to build — so you built everything.”
“Born of a broken deal with Nintendo, it outlived the grudge and everyone's expectations.”
“Big, green, and first to put a hard drive where its heart should be.”