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Nintendo DSi - Hands on with the Nintendo's New Handheld

Nintendo's new portable console sports a new camera, music player, and an online store. But do these new features justify the almost $200 price tag?

Upon first starting the DSi you are greeting with the same warning about seizures as the DS Lite. Once you tap passed this warning you are in the main system's interface. The interface resembles that of the Wii in that there are little tiles with the different applications you can access: System Settings, Game Card, DSi Camera, Music Player, the DSi Shop, DS Download Play, PictoChat, and a couple of blank tiles for downloadable games and applications.

There are a lot more System Settings in the DSi than there were in the DS Lite; and the great thing is you don't have to power off the console every time you make a change! Along with the usual time/date and profile settings, this is where you can configure your Wi-Fi connections (which now supports WPA encryption!!), turn Wi-Fi on and off, and even set parental controls (not like Nintendo has any games that parents need to worry about.) The DSi also now has firmware updates similar to the PSP that is also accessible in the settings menus. This could be bad news for you home-brewers out there as this is required to run some of the fancier features of the DSi.

The most highly advertised additions to the DSi are the cameras. That's right, there are two cameras. The camera on the outside of the console's chassis, which is 3-megapixels, and another one on the hinge which is a slightly lower resolution. I can see a lot of games integrating these new cameras into their game-play but I'm not sure how successful it will be. The built in software for the camera is a lot of fun though. You can use either the hinge camera for portraits or the outside camera for pictures of friends and anything other than yourself. The software includes filters that allow you to manipulate the way a picture is going to look BEFORE you snap the picture. Unfortunately there is no option that I've found that allows you to edit a photo once it's been taken.

Some of the filters include being able to draw on the screen or use stamps, bending the picture to distort it, and a filter called "mischief." Mischief is actually impressive because it uses face tracking. It will frame your face and add something goofy on top of it like a pigs nose over your for example. Other such face tracking filters are Merge which does exactly what it says. It will take two pictures and merge them together; lots of fun to do with your significant other if you want to get a scary idea of what your kids will look like. There is also the emoter which will bend your eyes and mouth to make you look like you're smiling, sad, or angry. Again these are all done before you snap the actual picture so taking candid pictures of your friends to manipulate later is out of the question. They need to be cooperative, which is obviously a lot less fun.

The music player can be amusing but ultimately falls flat as a music player. You can record your own sounds and voice and manipulate the sound, or do the same with music files that are stored on an SD memory card. So why does it fall flat you ask? The DSi music player DOES NOT PLAY MP3's!! The DSi music player will only play AAC files with the following extensions: m4a, mp4, and 3gp. Now don't get all excited iTuners, the DS will not play your .m4a music files that you downloaded from iTunes. So recording and manipulating your own sounds can be pretty entertaining, this is really not what I expected out of the much anticipated music player.

Personally what I was most excited about was the Nintendo DSi Shop. This is the online DS counterpart to the Wii's online store. Players can purchase point cards much like Wii points (called DS points) and apply those points towards software that you can download. I want to add that Nintendo gives players a free 1000 points on their account when you first log into it with your new DSi. As of now the game selection is a bit slim consisting of a smaller version of Brain Age called "Brain Age Express" which is still awesome, a WarioWare title that uses the built in camera (more on that later), and a couple of low end games that aren't worth mentioning. These games are downloaded onto the system itself and NOT onto an SD card which was a little disappointing for me since that means zero expandability. Still, I'm very excited to see some new titles show up as time goes on. Please note that Wii points are not the same as DS points. The cards you buy at retail stores combine the two as in $20 for 2000 Wii/DS points. But you can only add those 2000 points to either your Wii account or your DS account, regardless if they are linked or not.

A few technical notes I want to touch base on again before I wrap this up. The SD card does not store games or software on it. The SD card is strictly for storing pictures taken only with the DSi cameras and music. Pictures taken with another device will not be recognized. Also the DSi uses a different charger than the DS Lite; for those of you who were hoping on having an extra charger.

Whether or not these new features are worth dishing out the $169.99 for a new DSi is up to you. Personally I don't regret the trade-in and I would recommend it to any DSi enthusiast as well as newcomers to the console. Homebrewers beware! Though I haven't confirmed all flash cards, I know for a fact the Cyclo Evolution flash cards do not work with the DSi. I'm sure the others are having their challenges as well. Legit gamers, have at it! If anything do it for the bigger screens and better sound.