Well, i received the N-Gage QD prototype i bought off of ebay. I thought i would mention a few things about it. Unfortunately i don't have a stable internet connection these days, so instead of putting this up on my site, i'll post here. I can't take pictures right now, but i'll post them when i can. From speaking with the seller, this particular handheld was used to show off games internally within Nokia. When i got it, i tryed to figure out what exactly would desiginate the handheld as a prototype. Underneath the battery where the system usually has the IMEI number, it says "PROTO Property of Nokia". The IMEI number is listed as all zeroes and the serial number is 6. The first thing i noticed when i turned it on is that it takes a really freaking long time to boot. A standard N-Gage QD takes about a minute and a half from the time you press the power button, this proto takes about five minutes to boot. When you first turn the system on, it pops up a message "Game Demonstration Device only. Some features may be unavailible". The menus look the same as the standard retail unit, except some items are missing. There isn't a menu option for Java games, for example. I also noticed that some of the default ringtones have different filenames than what they used for the retail version. With a retail QD you get a warning when you remove the game cartrage without disabling the port first. With this proto, there is no warning. The console doesn't seem to care. It updates the menu with the new game without issue. If you leave this proto sit, it will automaticly start up whatever game is in the device after a few minutes. It acts as an attract mode, i suppose. Normally with a retail QD, if you leave the unit charging it will just display the battery icon in the upper right corner of the screen. If you leave this prototype charging, it starts up whatever game is in the slot. I suppose this is so you can test the game while the unit is still charging. This proto comes with the standard N-Gage dummy sim. When i put my active T-Mobile sim in there the unit started up fine, but was unable to make calls. It popped up a message saying that this feature is disabled. With an active sim card, the unit displayed the "voicemail" icon, which tells me that it does have the proper antenna and communications protocals loaded, but phonecalls are disabled in the firmware. I'm not sure if the proto can make calls to 911, i would guess it can, but will not test this feature. If anyone has any questions, lmk...
I have heard of hundreds of these being fried by kids trying to flash retail firmware to them to make them useable as a phone. Can you still run normal symbian software on it, such as the file managers? might be interesting to see what the internal file structure and files look like (not that I would have much of an idea how to use it mind)
It seems to run all of the series 60 apps fine. I didn't check out the file system tho. EDIT: Does anybody know if the retail kiosc models say "Proto" under the battery?
I just pulled mine out of my countertop display and it indeed says proto/property of nokia beneath the battery. Your unit sounds like it works similarly to mine with the auto boot when charging. Since I don't have a retail unit to compare it to I didn't realize that this was not the norm. I thought it was odd mind you, but with some of Nokias other design decisions it didn't surprise me too much.
I was playing with it again last night, and i found that the auto start "attract" feature didn't work right on some of the prototype games i have while it worked fine on others. They wouldn't autostart, but would show up fine in the menu just as a retail game should. I was told my unit was for internal nokia testing, but who knows. Wouldn't be the first time a seller lied. The serial number of "6" would seem to support it tho.
