Written by: Brandon "NOA 'til I Die" Cackowski-Schnell
On Sunday, April 5th, Nintendo released the DSi, the company’s latest edition of the little console that could. With the staggering success of the DS Lite (roughly 100 million units sold worldwide) one would think that Nintendo would just sit back and watch the money come in, but as Nintendo sees it, the DS Lite has reached a saturation point. Once a household owns a DS, there's very little incentive to buy another one, rather than just share the existing one. Enter the DSi. With its ability to download games and its two digital cameras, Nintendo is hoping that folks will want their own DSi so that they can personalize them to their heart's content. Only then will Nintendo's grip on our lives be complete as we usher in a new age of Nintendomination.
Unlike the obvious system improvements that came with the transition from the original DS to the DS Lite, the upgrade from DS Lite to DSi isn't an automatic "yes". If the transition from DS to DS Lite was like going from VHS to DVD, upgrading from the DS Lite to the DSi is like going from DVD to Blu-Ray. There's a visual improvement and a host of new features but for many people that’s not enough to justify the additional cost. With that, let's get into the guts of the matter.
What You'll Gain
Bigger Screens
The DSi sports two slightly larger screens, measuring in at 3.25 inches each compared to the DS Lite's 3 inch screens. The resolution is unchanged at 256 x 192 pixels, but they do seem slightly brighter and more vibrant. Colors pop more than on the DS Lite, however that may be due to the newness of the unit.
Beefier Guts
The DSi's CPU clocks in at 133 MHz, double that of the DS Lite's 66 MHz chip. In addition to this, the console gets a RAM upgrade from 4 MB to 16 MB. So far, games run the same on both consoles, which is to be expected as any games playable on the DSi were developed for the DS. At present, there is nothing indicating that beefier games will be released as DSi only games but one can dream.
Onboard Storage
The DSi supports 256 MB of onboard storage to host the new applications as well as downloadable games. It's not a lot, but hopefully the recent Wii system update that allows for playing of games off of the SD card will make its way to the DSi.
SDHC Support
The DSi sports a nifty new SD card slot thereby ushering Nintendo into the 21st century. SD cards can be used to store downloaded games, pictures and music files, however at present you can not play downloaded games off of the SD card. Again, hopefully this can be remedied with a system update in the future.
