N-Gage Classic

The original N-Gage phone was 134 x 70 x 20 mm in size and weighed 137 g, and was criticised by many for its clumsy taco shaped design. The speaker and microphone were located on the side edge of the phone, which resulted in users having to hold the side of the phone against their cheek in order to talk into it. Although the reason given for this was to avoid the screen becoming smudged when held against the user's cheek, almost all other cell phones have the screen against the cheek when the user is talking, and most people were unwilling to talk in such an awkward manner. In addition, users had to remove the phone's plastic cover and the battery compartment in order to insert a game into the memory card slot.

The original N-Gage did have a large amount of executable RAM memory compared to Series 60 devices (the 66xx series), and had a dedicated hardware chip for MP3 decoding (other Series 60 devices, including the N-Gage QD, relied on software decoding). It could also be mounted as a USB Mass Storage device on any compatible computer and had stereo output from a standard 3.5 mm jack plug.

However, the underlying operating system, Series 60, did not support horizontal orientations at that time, and so all games were played in the vertical orientation. This proved to be unpopular with some buyers, and also with game developers, which meant that although the device managed to gain some well known franchises such as Sonic, Rayman, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Red Faction, the game library was far from extensive.

Another problem came from the marketing of the N-Gage. In North America, the device was sold primarily through specialty game outlets rather than through mobile (cell) phone providers, which only served to highlight the high price, lack of games and awkward interface compared to other gaming devices. Even those carried in cellphone retail outlets faced problems, as the phone only worked on GSM networks, which was incompatible with the then-largest US cell service provider, Verizon Wireless, and also as all of Japan's mobile networks. Even when the phone was compatible with major mobile phone networks, its popularity was varied; for example it received a poor reception in the UK and Canada, but was more popular in Asia and mainland Europe where the ability to play games on a mobile phone was seen to be much more desirable.