Nintendo Lite ? Would I want one ?
What is a Nintendo Lite and would I actually want one? Well.. that is the question on the lips of many people. I still think a lot of people think that handheld ds consoles are just for kids. That is clearly not the case with the Nintendo Lite and Nintendo have tried to push this in many of the adverts for the Nintendo Lites themselves.
The Nintendo DS Handheld Console is a very light and portable and comes with some brilliant platform, puzzle and some quite weird games. It comes with the following features
- Dual 3 inch screens ( one touch screen )
- Lithium battery ( 15-19 hours battery life on lowest brightness / 5 - 8 on high brightness )
- Touch screen pencil style Stylus
- Very ergonomically designed
The DS screen are very bright have brilliant colors and the control of the unit are also very easy to use. Due to the design of the ds lite it does actually feel very comfortable and does feel like you are using a full size game controller and not a reduced size gaming console as in the nintendo game boy.
The cartridges that are used with the Nintendo Lite plug into a discreet socket at the back of the unit and are well hidden and not prone to be caught with your hands whilst using the DS. You can also still use any GBA games that may be left over from your Gameboy Console and these plug into the front of the unit. The GBA games do slight stick out but this is not a problem.
So what does the Nintendo DS Lite offer to make use buy one?
For our children we do have a tremendous amount of games available and this is not just the standard platform games that you may expect. My son (who is six) has had his DS for around a year now and he initially started playing the brain training games and moved on from that to playing scrabble. To be honest this did accelerate his school work in the process of doing this improved reading by leaps and bounds. He is now reading two stages above his level for his age and his maths has also improved to similar levels. He has mainly been using 'Brain Training', 'Maths Training' and 'Scrabble 2007 edition' for around the first 6 months of this year... He has not progressed off them and does play more 'mario karts' and 'mario brothers' type games, but this is probably due to the fact I bought one of those Wii Consoles in the summer and we do have mario karts for that which he loves to play.
For the older (No... i'll say more mature) people among us, I do find that the Nintendo Lite is very good to use but I do prefer more logical games like 'Puzzle League DS', 'Touch Master' and of course 'Brain Training'.. Though I do like the odd game of Sonic but still find it had to control 
...
I do find that playing the puzzle type games does help you focus on other tasks and this is something that I think would help a lot of others.
When it comes to the much older side of society my parents do also have a HandHeld DS in which they like to play crosswords / word searches and again the Brain training software (it may be brain age they have) and it does keep them mentally fit.. At 70 and 76 they are very active and that activity has improved 10 fold since I bought the pair of DS Consoles for them...
A new version of the Nintendo Lite is due out in the US and Europe in the spring of 2009 and is called the Nintendo Lite DSi and come with a whole host of new features, which in the main are not needed and I believe will be rarely used. The new DSi will come with a camera build in, MP3 player built in, Slightly bigger screens (up from 3.0 to 3.25 inches), a better battery life and the ability to plug in an SD Card for extra storage and to play mp3 files.
Unless you need the latest gadgets, I would not bother with the new DSi and would stick with the Nintendo Lite as at present it is ideal for all ages alike. So go buy here NOW!!! You won't regret it....
