Big screen, dedicated gaming keys, landscape orientation and tv-out: such gaming delights one can get from a mobile device. As I have mentioned from my previous post, the N95 8gb really looks and feels like a true dedicated gaming console. Sounds perfect, but there are still some letdowns which made me scratch my head and crossed eyebrows.

After playing games (N-gage, vBag, Global Race and a few more) with it, here's a short list of my thoughts:

• The dedicated gaming keys are really nice but can be troublesome for button-mashing games (N-gage's ONE for instance). They are hard to push and do not provide good tactility feedbacks. I found it hard repeatedly pressing these keys, especially when on the verge of gaming. For instance, when playing ONE which requires fast combination of buttons, I only use the dedicated gaming keys if I just want to show off to friends landscape gaming with the phone. But for serious fights (i.e to beat up my brother, lol), I always switch to portrait and use the keypad instead. I win fights easier that way :).
  
  
• Another thing about the gaming keys is that my thumb does not feel comfortable on the narrow pad where the gaming keys are on. My right hand was craving for more space to deal with the keys.
  
  
• The dpad is great to use and the 2.8" screen is just awesome.
  
  
• I have experienced errors with N-gage such as "Memory low: Quit other applications.." kind of messages and game crashes. Also, N-gage games tends to be laggy at times, especially if you have background running applications. But these instances are very rare, which only lowers the gaming experience by a very tiny margin. It can be easily addressed either by the N-gage application update, or a firmware upgrade of the device itself. With regards to other third-party games, everything went smoothly.
  
  
• Games that utilizes the N95's 3d-accelerated graphics chip (like Global Race, 7 Days and Oval Racer) look nice and feastful in the eye through TV-out. But as expected, when I played Crash Bandicot and ONE which rely solely on the software for triangle drawing and processing, noticeable were the stretched out pixels and frame skips. The graphics and animation is definitely smoother on the phone's screen. But as a whole, gaming with a tv-screen is really fun. You can even use a Nintendo Wii remote control or a bluetooth keyboard for a cooler and a more enjoyable gaming experience.
  
  
• With vBag, the N95 can become a suitable replacement for a GAMEBoy without having the need for cartridges. You'll get a massive storage space for lots of gba games plus tv-out!. The only problem is that the dedicated gaming keys are not supported. So you will have to do key mappings through magic keys for you to really enjoy landscape gaming of gameboy games.

Problems that some may also experience is feeling uncomfortable holding the *bulky* device for hours of gaming and dealing with the gaming keys. But in general, the N95 8gb does excel as a great gaming device. For me, it's the best in gaming from Nokia so far. Big screen, dedicated gaming keys, dual cpu, plenty of RAM, and 3d graphics hardware accelerator chip. Do you own an N95 8gb? What do you think?

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