My DSi Review, I've put it through the paces

[Toodles]

Now that's I've spent a few hours tinkering with my DSi I thought I would write a short review about the upgrade. The first thing noticeable about the new version is the change of design. The DSi is no longer all shiny and "iPod-y" like the DS Lite, which makes it more comfortable to hold and prevents it from getting fingerprints all over it. The size and weight have changed a bit, too. It takes a second to adjust to the altered layout, but it's pretty much the same as the Lite, so it's not a big deal. The system is slightly lighter, which is nice for games where you hold the system with one hand. The new volume control works much better than the slider from the Lite. The screens are larger and look much sharper. They really do look a lot better. The sound quality has also improved, though it's a pretty minor update.

The menus have all been redone to match the Wii. Seriously, the DSi is essentially the Wii if it were a DS. The menus now have Wii-esque ambient music and the options menus are nearly identical to those on the Wii. The only real downside here is that it hides away a few features like the Alarm Clock, but the new look works fine, just as it does on the Wii. This leads me to the shop, which is designed exactly like the Wii Shop, right down to the music. It's easy to connect and very straight forward. I tested the browser as well, which is functional but a little clunky. Since it doesn't support things like Flash, it's quite limited, but you can surf MFGG just fine! The camera software is actually a lot of fun. The distortion tools are really simple to use, making it easy to produce hilarious pictures. I can already seeing myself goofing around with that a lot, and I don't tend to take a lot of pictures.

The last thing I did was try out some games. Surprisingly the extra horsepower of the DSi actually does make some games play better. I especially noticed that Geometry Wars Galaxies played with significantly less lag than it did on the DS Lite. Of course, some of the improvement could be in my mind since I haven't played a DS in a month, but it really did seem to play a lot smoother.

Overall (aka; tl:dr): The DSi is great. It improves on nearly every aspect of the Lite in some way or another and the online components are really slick. If you're interested in upgrading you probably won't be disappointed. However, if you don't care about the new features or like to play GBA games, I doubt the new features here would change your mind. As for the portability and features that the DS already had, it's not much of a change, though some games do seem to play smoother. It's a worthy update, but only for those who are actually interested in the new features.

This post has been edited by Toodles on Apr 5 2009, 12:50 PM

[Shyguy Grey]

I agree with this.

The camera mode is a lot of fun. I spent a few hows screwing around with various pictures already.