Nintendo 3DS – Cosmo Black

Good, but equal amount of downsides =/ Wait for eventual revision and more games!, April 1, 2011

= Fun: 

I’m a pretty big video game player, and I’ve owned most systems to come out of the gate; so I’m speaking from a bit of experience. Unfortunately, the Nintendo 3DS was a good product with substantial flaws and a lackluster launch. I’m going to keep this short but to the point.

Pros:

-3D effect is quite good, and very clear
-Screens are very nice and vibrant, they look great, and the touch on the bottom screen is improved from the DS, seems more accurate, and also responds to touch fairly well at the risk of fingerprints everywhere
-Streetpass meeting of random other Mii’s is pretty fun
-Included games and features on the system are fun and impressive, and Find Mii is a pretty good little RPG lite
-Analog nub is a bigger, more comfortable, smoother, better version of the PSP analog nub, absolutely fantastic
-Buttons are clicky and responsive (so is the dpad, not sure if thats a pro or a con, just different at this point)
-Comes with a 2gb SD card, very surprised to see that actually
-Charging cradle is a very nice addition
-Sound quality is good, definitely higher quality than the DS
-Had the black and aqua colors, they look fantastic, the aqua vibrant and the black shimmery from grey to black

Cons:

-Games at launch are not that fantastic, plus there aren’t many of them. Some are fun, some are ports (albeit good ones), some are just plain bad
-Battery life is terrible. Using all of the system features is a great experience that is hampered because the battery is unable to keep all those features working for any long amount of time, even the standby mode is short (reminds me of the PSP launch in that regard)
-The 3D “sweet spot” is narrow, not a distance issue, but a tilt issue. For instance playing face raiders in 3D is ridiculous, you will lost the 3D constantly, moving your console around
-The cameras, while good for showing off some 3D photos and playing face raiders, are pretty terrible quality for anything past that
-System feels a little too cheap, seems less solid than my old DS lite and DSi
-Hinge is wobbly; had several friends send in theirs for replacements from Nintendo, made it better, but still wobbly
-Included web browser not enabled till later update supposedly, as are a few features
-Honestly, even with fingers working relatively well on the touch screen, it should be capacitive. The stylus feels dated, you should be able to just thumb at the screen for everything. Also, new stylus placement and need to extend are… odd choices

And that’s that. I’m trying to be relatively neutral about this, but I am a bit disappointed I think because I usually expect more from Nintendo on a launch. But, saying that I think this system will be great with a refresh. Like the DS to DS lite, they made a good product great, and I believe it’ll be the same here. Another note, backwards compatibly with the DS games is a mixed bag, some people will like it some people won’t. It of course doesn’t look as good as original DS games, but when you’re changing screens and resolutions, thats a given, the fact it’s on there is great I think.

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