Nintendo's done it again.
The new Nintendo DSi handheld gaming console, arriving in stores April 5 for $170, is a quantum leap forward from the similar-looking DS Lite. It adds another layer of applications and functions to the core DS system to become the first Nintendo handheld that's plenty of fun even without the games.
But back in October, when the Japanese video-game titan made the surprise announcement that it'd be introducing yet a third edition of its wildly popular DS, the news didn't appear to make sense.
Nintendo had already reduced the size and weight of 2004's blocky original DS with the slimmer, prettier DS Lite in 2006, a redesign that expanded the handheld's market beyond young boys to their sisters and older siblings.
Worldwide sales of both DS models were approaching 100 million units, a threshold that's since been passed, and the addition of a third, pricier model (the DS Lite costs $130) seemed to risk market saturation.
The single new feature promised in the DSi — as in "eye," or "individualization" — sounded like a throwaway gimmick. Two low-resolution digital cameras, one in the hinge facing the player and the other on the outside shell? Big deal.
There were a couple of technical upgrades as well — more memory, more storage capacity and the addition of an SD card slot — but compared to the much higher-powered PlayStation Portable, Sony's handheld console, those seemed like a feeble attempt to catch up.
Well, I was wrong. The DSi is a huge expansion of the DS's capabilities. It adds a whole new layer of functionality to the DS interface.
Now playing game cartridges is just one application among many — one that can finally "hot-swap" cartridges in and out without having to turn the unit off.
The previously existing Pictochat and Download Play functions are applications as well, but it's two of the new apps — called just "Camera" and "Sound" — that really sell the DSi.
"Camera" not only takes pictures, but lets you manipulate them with different lenses, distortion effects, overlays and filters. You can stretch and swirl images with the touch stylus or your finger even before the shutter's clicked, or use various mirror effects to create kaleidoscopic images.
"I can't believe that you can take a picture and then color it in and then make a frame," said my lab assistant, who shall remain unnamed to protect her privacy. "I like making my pictures wacky and to spread my face on the DSi."
The Camera software automatically recognizes faces, so you can add preset templates of mustaches, glasses, funny ears and noses to your own images, or even merge two faces for truly weird-looking portraits.
The effects work on both new and archived pictures, which can be saved either to the DSi's 256 MB of onboard storage or your own SD card.
I whipped out the DSi in a room full of second-graders three days before the model went on sale; the boys instantly went nuts, and the girls had a blast playing with pictures.
The "Sound" application lets you record brief clips, up to 10 seconds, of your voice or an instrument, and then manipulate them in different ways.
There's a pitch/speed shifter, an effects filter with presets including "electric fan," "tunnel," "robot" and ''8-bit game" and a toggle to play sounds backwards and forwards.
Using an SD card, you can play AAC-format song files (sorry, no MP3) and use the same effects on those as well, though you can't save the manipulated versions.
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