Product Details

• Platform: Nintendo 64

Customer Reviews

It's another Nintendo minor renew item I would say
I have black one from 2008 Christmas from my mother to my 6 years old son.
We are living in California so it's little different than use in Japan.
I have no problem read/write Japanese so reviewing this product with fully understand owners manual. We also have 2 DS lite and GBA.

Review****
1. 2 Cameras inside and outside. It's just another addition but not really surprised since you can take a picture with your cell phone mostly. Photo can be arrange and make few different way(flower flame and such) like small version photoshop and save them. They have calender with writing your pen to make reminder with photo on it.

2. Voice recording: it is fun, record voice for few second and play with different sound like robot, tunnel, harmony, bird, etc.
Your recorded voice overwrite and erase as well. you can save them and listen over and over.

3. Internet connection!
Yes, I think this is big part of this DSi I believe. Wireless wifi connect to online. I can access to Yahoo, MSN and amazon.com etc. I tried access to hotmail and yahoo mail site but it was too big and couldn't download. It's took looong time and barely moving screen pointer. I guess if you just read news and such is useful but I would like to use my laptop when I'm at home.

I tried access to mapquest.com and it required big memory so most of part couldn't see it. Not useful.
This internet connection is probably useful for downloading game from Nintendo shop but not really great for other than that.

Nintendo shop start selling some games but I don't tried yet. They have some free stuff you can download from "DSi Ware".
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/dsiware/index.html

4. Size and screen little big, unit is thinner than before but I like old DS lite more fits on hand. Pen is little longer that all.

5. Turn on/off button is inside and volume controller is on side press up and down.

6. Surface is matt, no worry about scratches anymore (for black)

7. Battery life is shorter than before.

8. Alarm setting for your reminder.

9. No more language sellection (this is sad part)

10. Charge is differnt than DS Lite little smaller.


OVER ALL:

I would say DSi is good unit but you can still provide your kids DS lite enough with reasonable price. Small kids like 6 years old not necessary for internet connection unless Nintendo shop start selling something big hit mega game like next Mario game online shop only. Otherwise You will loose GB advance slot. I wish they have GBA slot in DSi as well.
There is lot of used fun GBA still in game shop so I like to use DS lite more.

Depends on your needs, you need internet connection or not.
Kids need online or not. I fyou have iphone or blackberry, just buy DS Lite. My son not need internet connection so he is really not interested this unit and he like his old DS lite that he can play both GBA and DSlite game. Manufacture suggestion retail price in Japan 19800yen which is about 189usd means pay 60 more, is that worth to you?

Thank you for reading.

Amazingly Amazing.
This unit has one problem so far as I can see it. It is not backwards compatible to the Gameboy Advance. This is not enough of a shortcoming to reduce it's rating by a star though. This is a 5 star system.

As of now only the Japanese version is available. The unit does not have any english language menu or capability. I figured the system out pretty quickly as i is similar to the Gameboy DS. Also, I used a youtube video skillfully made by someone on how to set up the system from out of the box. The unit does allow English characters so you can set it up with your name and such.

The screen is bigger and better. The unit is slightly larger but barely. It is matt so it does not show smudges as easily. The power button is on the inside now so it can not accidentally be turned on in a bag. It now has a slot for DS card memory. This is a huge advance. It will allow pictures to be stored as well as games, music and more.

The DSI has 2 cameras, one on the inside and one on the outside. Video chat and photos can all be taken with this double camera feature. This is very cool. Simple and fun photo altering software is pre installed and allows the user to alter photos. There is also wildly fun audio editing software installed. This allows one to record natural sounds and edit them in many wild ways. This is loads of fun. I am also assuming that future games will make use of these features.

The menu is simple and intuitive. It takes it's cues from the PSP and PS3 as far as a scrolling horizontal navigation goes.

It has wifi access but i have yet to get this to work. This may be due to the fact that I can not read Japanese or it may just be that there is no way to set the unit up in the states yet. After all, right now there is no USA website for this unit. All DS Lite games play fine and show up in the menu instantly. Turning the unit off to switch games is no longer necessary.

Any questions I did not cover I'll be happy to answer.

Nintendo Dsi is impressive but falls short compatibility wise.
First impression was disappointment.
1. NO GBA SLOT!
That's right, no Guitar Hero.
That's right, no Tony Hawk Motion.
That's right, you wont be able to collect all your Pokemons In Diamond and Pearl without inserting the GBA cartridge to transfer them.

2. Not WideScreen.
Okay, its not really a damper but in the day and age EVERYONE is making games which support WideScreen, why not DS?

3. No Modchips.
That's Right, time to blow the dust off all your backed up roms and start traveling with them again.
"DSi Hacker com has confirmed After testing DSi with various DS Flash Cards it has been confirmed that at this point Nintendo has figured out how to block them from booting in DSi consoles. Tested and failed - R4 - EZ Flash V - CycloDS - G6 DS Real - M3 DS Real - iTouch DS - FCard - Supercard DS One - NCard - M3 DS Simply - U2DS - R4DS."

All is not lost though, Im sure DSi will give you the ability to Repurchase your GBA Roms via the DS Store. Until then the only work around I can see for current DSi owners that want 100% compatibility is to Crazy Glue a DSLite to the bottom of it.