Friday, April 03, 2009

Nintendo DSi Review

Today, at around 9 o'clock we finally received the DSi. We already have a DS Lite and many people were recommending that the DSi isn't worth it if the owner already has a DS. But we took the plunge anyway and bought it...

I had long waited for this moment eagerly anticipating what was in store. We opened the box and there it was. It looked really good. It is slightly bigger than its predecessors - the DS and DS Lite. But its screen is also bigger and its graphics are really good. It had a matted surface which I didn't like. I liked the shiny polished surface of the DS.

It didn't take very long to set up and we were ready to go. First we tried out the new camera and it seemed to work very well, even though it is only 0.3 megapixels. Then I tried setting up the Internet. A good thing is that the DSi has support for WPA which is another feature the DS doesn't. We got it working and then I tried to find the Internet channel that had been promised to come with the DSi. I didn't find it. I was quite surprised that Nintendo had not held up their promise.

But then I figured out that it was hidden away in the Shop channel, the same as the Wii. We downloaded it and it worked really well. There is a feature that allows the user to switch between the touch screen and the top screen. I actually managed to write some of this post on it. But it got tiring after some time so I had to come to the computer.

Overall it is very good and I recommend buying it. I still haven't played a game on it yet but as I explore the features of the DSi there will be updates on this post every so often for a few days.

Update - 12:36 - The DSi only plays AAC files and not MP3. This is quite shocking. An easy way to convert from MP3 to AAC is by using iTunes. Search on Google for this.

Update - 2:32 PM -
I have now played Mario Kart and Super Mario Bros. on it and they both look very good on screen. The DSi has a much more sensitive touchpad. Its touch screen is also very good.

Update - 4:32 PM - The music player doesn't allow music to play through the speakers if it is closed. The only way to listen to music when it is closed is to put headphones before you close it.

Update - 5:38 PM - I forgot to say that another good feature of the DSi is that the brightness can be changed when playing the game. If the battery is running in the DS you had to exit the game and go back to the menu.

Update - 5:46 PM - Some disadvantages of the DSi:
  1. No GBA slot so you can't play and GBA games and some games which have extra hardware that slot here can not be played.
  2. No Flash support for the browser so many things like YouTube will not work.
  3. You can't play any audio streams on the browser.

Update - 05.04.09 - 5:46 PM - I have found another advantage:
  1. If you want to change the game then you can just take it out when you are in the menu unlike the DS where you had to switch it off. THe same is true after changing system preferences.



Some Pictures of the DSi:

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