Nintendo DS lite Review:
The Nintendo DS has been slimmed down and brightened up, and it's received a serious shot of vitamin style. Rechristened, the DS Lite attempts to make the same fashion statement for video game systems that the iPod did for MP3 players.
Two colors are exclusive to Japan: Enamel Navy (the color of our review sample) and Ice Blue, and Europe has a black DS Lite all its own. For the impatient and iPod-white averse, the system is completely region-free and supports multiple languages, meaning our "Japanese" DS Lite had no problem playing all of our "American" games.
Design :
The Nintendo DS Lite, like the original Nintendo DS, is a portable gaming system with two vertically tiered screens. On the bottom is a touch screen that allows you to use a stylus or a finger for anything from selecting options to moving characters. There's also a normal face-button layout that allows a more standard method of control. The system plays its own proprietary cartridges (which are somewhere between SD and CompactFlash cards in size), in addition to its near-full backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance (GBA) titles. The DS Lite is currently out in Japan for approximately $145, though scarce supplies have set the import rate at about $200. The system is completely region-free and supports multiple languages, meaning our "Japanese" DS Lite had no problem playing all of our "American" games. As its name suggests, the Nintendo DS Lite is a much more compactly designed system; at 133 x 73.9 x 21.5mm when closed and weighing in at 218g, it's 39 percent smaller and 21 percent lighter than its predecessor. The rounded corners are more finely tapered, and the top and bottom sides are symmetrical, avoiding the underbite-like look of the original's oversize bottom half. It's a much more pocket-friendly system than the original DS. Despite the smaller overall size, though, the trademark twin screens have the same dimensions.
