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....

Technorati Tags: HandHeld DS, nintendo ds handheld console, Nintendo Lite

To this end a new and more advanced (and also a new business model comes into play) model is to be released called the Nintendo Lite DSi. The new DSI is due out in the US and Europe in the spring of 2009.

The specification for the new DSi console is as follows:

- The screen size has been Increased up 3.25 inches from 3.0
- The DSi has dual touch screens instead of the single screen on the Nintendo Lite
- The resolution of the screens have been Improved up to 640 x 480
- A new 3 megapixel Camera has now been built into the unit
- The DSi is now thinner overall and reduced from 21.5 to 18.9mm
- Now with On-board storage facilities
- A built in SD Card slot to give extra capability and storage
- A built in MP3 player
- A staggering 12% lighter
- A Built in browser that can be sued to purchase and download games online

NOTE the 'Built in browser' facility!!!!! This is the part of the specification that is vital to the new Nintendo Business model. Apple and iTunes make millions a year from download media, as do microsoft with xbox 360 live and now nintendo want their slice of the pie as to speak.

The new unit seems from the onset very nice but to be honest do we really need a camera built in or an MP3 player? I don't think we do with all the current phone technology having these built in and I personally do not know a household who do not have at least one mp3 player.

At the end of the day nintendo want people to upgrade the current unit as many do with apples iPod mp3 players, but I think nintendo have got this one wrong. Specifically in the area of the downloadable games and media. The new DSi will have regionalised downloads, so unlike the current Nintendo Lite you cannot buy a game in japan or the UK to use within the US; you will be locked to games from within your region.

This is I believe an attempt to claim back some ground on the piracy of roms and Moonshine type cards that are currently freely available (R4, M3 and Edge etc) at relatively low cost. But to not allow the backward compatibly with DS games on the DSi is also another short sighted move. Many parents have spent lots of cash on DS Games for themselves and their children for the current ds consoles (brain training, mario karts etc) and if they upgrade the games will be effectively cash down the drain. This will i believe be the biggest stumbling block to the upgrading of DS to DSi consoles.

The new DSi is release in japan in early november and schedules for released in the rest of the world in the spring of 2009. How this will fare? only time will tell....

Technorati Tags: DS Video Game, HandHeld DS, Nintendo DS Games, Nintendo Lite