Digital Trends

Nintendo DS Lite

June 13th, 2006 | by Scott Steinberg

Features and Design

First things first, though: Some good news for those already snookered into purchasing the Game Boy Advance (GBA), Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro and recently released, brighter-screened GBA SP update. Like many of these incremental revisions, DS Lite is merely a recommended, not essential upgrade.

As with the original Nintendo DS, the device runs all standard system-compatible carts including Brain Age and Metroid Prime: Hunters, offers WiFi-ready online multiplayer support and proves backwards compatible with Game Boy Advance software. You still get a microphone (players can interact with certain games, e.g. Nintendogs or Feel the Magic XY/XX, by speaking or blowing into it) and pair of twin screens (the bottom one being touch-sensitive) as well.

What's more, while the chrome casing that initially surrounded the console's internal circuitry has been replaced with a cheaper-looking, almost iPod-esque, milky-colored plastic shell that easily attracts scratching and fingerprint smudges, it still offers adequate hardware protection. Meaning that DS Lite, despite shipping in only a single hue, which Nintendo calls Polar White (Japanese models come in Enamel Navy and Ice Blue, European ones black), the gizmo remains travel- and jungle gym-ready as ever. Given that the device is region-free — unlike with DVDs, you can play titles from any territory — it's recommended that the fashion-conscious consider splurging and importing a unit from overseas via eBay or retailers such as Lik-Sang.com.

Let's call a spade a spade, however: The Nintendo DS, in its original form, was ugly, cumbersome and a pain in the butt to pack along on road trips/vacations given its tremendous heft. Between sheer bulkiness, a brick-like aesthetic, an unpolished user interface and ports and parts seemingly scattered at random around the gadget's base, it wasn't so much a case of less form, more function. It was, to be blunt, an issue of engineers jury-rigging a system so that it could ship in time for the holidays (November 2004), sacrificing industrial design on the altar of sales and marketing.

Worse, as we all know, featured games are plenty fun and innovative. But as anyone who's tried to wrap their hands around the oversized doohickey and its ultra-addictive amusements — not to mention hold the 9.7oz beast for an extended period of time — can attest, simply playing them is a workout.

Therefore any hardware retooling which offers enhancements in a single area, let alone all, as does the DS Lite, isn't just a bonus. It's also a guaranteed smash hit, especially for those of us petite folk looking to cram the device into a size 32 pair of men's jeans. Or, for that matter, fit the dainty little fingers of our 5'8" or smaller frames around the unit's d-pad, four face buttons (A, B, X, Y) and left/right shoulder triggers without cultivating the kind of grip that could crush walnuts.

Image Courtesy of Nintendo