N-Gage comes to NAM N97 devices with Software Update

I just read over on Mobile Tech Review that there is a software update for the Nokia N97 NAM that contains a download file for N-Gage. At first I went into the phone management>device updates folder and found nothing, but you need to go to Applications>SW update and look there for updates.

I did this and saw these four available updates: Maps 3.1 (Optional 5542kb) N97 C: Phone memory update (Optional 21kb) N-Gage application 1.30 (Optional 6144kb) Ovi Contacts 1.20 (Optional 2157kb) I don’t use Ovi Contacts so I am skipping that one. I have no idea what the N97 C: Phone memory update is so I first went to Handy Taskman to check my phone memory so I could see if this did anything to optimize things. I closed everything down, cleared my browser cache, and went and switched my home screen widgets to offline mode to see I had 33.5 MB available in C: and 38.4 MB available in RAM. I performed the N97 C: Phone memory update and saw no difference in Handy Taskman. I will look into this more to see if I can find out what this update was for.

I then performed the Maps 3.1 update since I really like using Ovi Maps 3 with the compass support.

Lastly, I performed the N-Gage installation and saw it installed automatically into the C: phone memory of my N97. Launching N-Gage took me into a landscape view and I was a bit surprised there does not seem to be a portrait mode for N-Gage. I am not sure how well games will play on the N97 touch screen, but plan to give one a try soon. I need to transfer my N-Gage games from my old N85, but I still haven’t been able to find a way to do that easily and am not happy with the tie down to IMEIs without an easy way to switch your licenses yourself.