andheld gaming and the world of portable consoles have both progressed in leaps and bounds over the decades. The first time I ever saw a GameBoy, on a school-bus en route to some classic elementary field trip location like Old Town Sacramento, I became instantly dissatisfied with the book I was holding and equally, instantly envious of the boy with the magic box.
As a staunch Sega fan, I wasn't too interested in collecting coins with a chubby Italian plumber, rings being more my style, but the lure of gaming where and whenever I wanted certainly captured my imagination. Of course, that early incarnation might as well have been carved out of stone when the Game Gear came out a short time later, I bought it. What I found gave me pause.bringing a gloriously bright color screen to bear against the old boy and his black, pencil-outlined inadequacy.
Dozens of years and hardware iterations later, handheld devices are no longer restricted to simple games and instead boast a vast range of abilities including wireless communications, internet browsing, and storage and playback of music and video of ever-increasing quality and clarity.
Amidst such a wealth of options, most of which were championed by Sony's shining PSP line, Nintendo's dual-screen handheld seemed almost overly simple yet incredibly popular thanks to a stellar line of innovative titles and unique features such as the built-in Pictochat function and the versatile touch-screen and stylus combination. Solid execution and strong support from the gaming community held the DS in fine form for years with little change even as the state of technology and hardware advanced and evolved beyond the little handheld that could.
Eventually, Nintendo conceded to the pressure of progress and put a new polish and cut on one of its crown jewels, releasing the newly redesigned DSi to the masses. Being something of a hardware-whore, I made the switch, turning in my glossy black DS for the new aggressive, matte hotness. What I found gave me pause. While there are certainly improvements to be found in almost every aspect of the unit, none of them feel significant and the overall differences are almost negligible.
A lot of improvements won't matter in the long run.When compared side-by-side with the older DS Lite, the DSi shows a few subtle exterior changes. Among these are two slightly larger and brighter LCD screens, a power button on the lower left to replace the older toggle switch, and two new camera lenses on the outer lid and the inner spine of the unit. One particularly nice change is the fingerprint-abolishing matte finish, giving the DSi a crisper look and removing the maddening need for neat freaks like myself to constantly wipe and polish the shell. All of these alterations are pluses, yet none of them are readily apparent and therefore almost won't matter in the long run.
Indeed, the most readily observable change in the architecture, the removal of the GBA cartridge slot, counts as one of the big downfalls of the new DS. While my collection of GBA games is limited to only a few titles, they are titles of solid quality and bear at least a few more replays. The lost convenience of a single piece of hardware bridging the gap between the two systems will certainly impact some more than others and brought to me the first small doubt about trading my Lite for the DSi. I now have to choose between acquiring a used Lite to play my old games or abandoning the old ways and moving forward, and neither option really appeals.
Once I moved past the physical differences and turned the unit on, I discovered that the DS's functionality had been improved substantially. In place of the old rudimentary system menu, formerly accessible only through a complete system restart, I found a newly designed dashboard system that could be reached at any time with a quick press of the power button.
Other improvements about the new system proved to be somewhat bittersweet. The DSi wi-fi is now compatible with WPA security standards and newer wireless protocols, and can connect to most newer wireless networks without the old optional adapter. As I quickly and easily integrated my new toy into my wireless family, I grew increasingly excited by the prospect of a little Mario Kart multiplayer action. When I popped in the game and tried to connect, however, I found that the old software still retained the old limitations. Frustrating? Certainly.
A fair bit of polish has been applied to a solid piece of hardware.At that point I decided to check out the browser options, made available via a free download from the DS store. Maybe here I could find use for the new wireless abilities, something to make up for the setback I'd just suffered. The internet was readily accessed and easily viewed, thanks to the smooth-scrolling abilities afforded by the touch-screen. Load times were a tad slow, though well within expectations given the nature of the hardware.
When I surfed over to Game and Player's main page, I found that the graphics were loaded only up to the edges of the currently displayed screen. Scrolling around required the DS to quickly draw fresh material, and while this caused delay, it took very little overall time and was hardly an issue. The only trouble I ran into occurred when I tried to access my Gmail account. After thirty seconds of load time I was informed that my handheld didn't have enough available storage capacity to completely load the page. This problem could very likely be alleviated with the addition of an SD card in the DSi's storage slot but the unit by itself had reached its limit. The ability to check my e-mail on the fly had been, for me, the most attractive reason for having a portable browser; finding myself constrained in this fashion made the browser almost useless to me.
At the end of the day, Nintendo's alterations amounted to putting a fair bit of polish on an already solid piece of hardware. Performance and function are all marginally enhanced, and the quirky little perks like the built-in cameras and basic photo and audio editing capabilities give the casual user looking for a portable distraction several more options. Still, anyone with a Lite in good working order or a decent collection of GBA carts might think twice before grabbing the new DSi.
