More Hands On With The DSi

Being a Gold or Platinum member of Club Nintendo has a few perks here and there. The most recent benefit to registering all of my Nintendo games came in the form of a little email invite to my local GameStop to get some early play time with the DSi. We already got a great round of DSi impressions from our very own Fruit Brute, but I figured I'd chime in with my thoughts on the new handheld and a word or two on the event itself.

The event kicked off a local Nintendo rep reading off all the new features the DSi has to offer. Cameras, SD cart slot, bigger screens, and the whole shebang. After what felt like a lifetime, she handed out a few of the units and let us that a look at the system. While I really wanted to see how well the toothpaste-blue unit looked in person, our group only saw a batch of black DSi's. The machine itself looks and feels classy. Nintendo has thankfully done away with the fingerprint-prone glossy shell in favor of an Apple-like matte finish. While the DSi is slightly thinner than the lite, the machine carried just the right amount of weight to it. The construction of the machine maintains Nintendo's standard for handhelds, but my only complaint is that the shoulder buttons feel a little too small for my misshapen hands.

While we didn't get any peeks at any DSi specific software, we did get to play around with the on-system diversions that include the music player, camera tools, and the eternally useless Pictochat. The user interfaces and OS are drop dead gorgeous. The main menu's horizontal scrolling feels very similar to the PS3's cross media bar, but it feels much quicker thanks to stylus control. Carrying on a "tv channel" theme that mimics the Wii's interface, each little app on your DSi is represented with a little animated icon . It doesn't take long to reach exactly what you're looking for and should still be usable when you've filled system's memory with apps.

Speaking of apps, one thing that the rep mentioned that I'm not exactly sure if I've seen reported elsewhere was the fact that anyone who buys and registers their DSi on Club Nintendo will receive a credit for 1000 points for DSiWare. This certainly makes the price tag a little bit friendlier for those sitting on the fence. Our rep was shy on talking about what would be available online for the system's launch (we know the Virtual Console is coming in some form), but did mention that the Opera web browser would be available for download on day one.

When I heard about the DSi's 0.3 megapixel cameras I wasn't that thrilled about the prospects of grainy cel phone pictures, but I was surprised by the quality of the images I took at the demo. They're not that great, but as you can see above they aren't half bad either. There's no flash, so all you low-fi photographers out there will have to be mindful of your light sources. Thankfully you'll be able to get snap-happy with the DSi, since it is able to store over 400 images internally. The DSi pulls off some interesting effects (from face morphing to "Prince video"), but the most interesting camera features had to be the ones that relied on face recognition. Hopefully some crafty developers will be able to put this to good use.

The music player was just as simple and fun as the rest of the experience. The visualizers look as though they have been ripped out of a Rhythm Heaven game that we haven't seen yet and even included a few shout-outs to NES classics (my personal favorite being the Excitebike theme). I'm not sure how much use this is going to get from me, since I don't have stock piles of AAC files, but if you've got the tunes it's a pretty fun way to hear your music.

I'll be honest, I was a little worried about the DSi when it was first announced. It didn't seem to have that many "new features" and the loss of my beloved GBA slot wasn't helping. But after getting some personal time with the machine, I take it all back. It features the best looking screen the platform has ever received and somehow able to improve upon the Lite's form factor. This is an upgrade that every DS Phat owner and a lot of DS Lite owners should be happy with.

Just a quick message to any Nintendo reps that might be reading this: At the next event you put on, please let me take pictures! I would love to show you how everyone that was at your shindig was having a great time. Also, thanks for printing out some of our pictures and handing out those cute little magnet frames!