Nintendo DS Lite Hands On Review

February 28th, 2006, 16:50 Posted By: wraggster

Lik Sang have done a great hands on feature of the new Nintendo DS Lite, heres some screens and info:



Let there be Lite. Lik Sang has today received its very first Nintendo DS Lite, which has been shining in our office since this morning (literally). In this report hereafter, we take the bad boy for a ride through one of our traditional hands-on reports, warming up for the real release that happens in a couple of days. Please note that we have only received one sample unit so far, we have not received the final delivery yet and a more detailed news article will follow once the Nintendo DS Lite officially hits the streets after March 2.



Latest rumors on the ground mention that only 93.000 pieces will make it for the debut, only a third of the originally planned 280.000, after two colors got postponed to 11th of March. That's very short indeed, even less than the Japanese PSP or the US Xbox 360 at launch, and god knows they were hard to get already. Taking into consideration the fact that Nintendo DS is a hot piece of machinery that has been "sold out" everywhere in Japan for the last two months, it is now certain that all hell will break loose on March 2nd. Supply will not meet demand once again, there is never enough of the good stuff on day-one. Big N is reportedly having plans to flood the market with a total of 1 million DS Lites before the end of March in the Land of the Rising Sun but we are not yet convinced if that will even prove to be sufficient.



"Smaller, lighter, brighter" was the motto so far. Now, you can officially add whiter, cooler, prettier, sleeker, and overall better to your arsenal of superlatives when describing the Nintendo DS Lite in comparison with the first edition of the Nintendo DS. The new edition has for sure a fashionable look, and appears more modern than the previous model, which many compared to a "cheap plastic toy from the 20th century" when it first came out (not that we would agree with them!). Nintendo has adopted the transparent see-through layer of plastic that comes on top of a product casing to give it a shinier look (like with the PSP or the iPod for instance). I must admit I also find the white color to be much trendier and more appealing than the original Silver painting there was on the early NDS when it first was put in my palms in November 2004. All in all, a well done piece of hardware is what it is.

From the firmware side of things, we haven't noticed any differences. The brightness is controlled using the same icon that was used to switch the light on and off in the past, and the menu of course still features English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Italian languages and comes 100% region free for all games.

Read the full hands on article and check out a ton more screens at Lik Sang

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