The new Nintendo DSi steps into Sony PSP territory with new multimedia features and functions.

Chad Sapieha from Evergeek takes a look at 11 new features that will differentiate the DSi from the Nintendo DS

Music player - Pass

A long overdue feature for Nintendo’s handheld platforms, music playback allows game-loving music fans (or music-loving game fans) to lug around one less device as they trek about town - assuming their music is in encoded AAC format (more on that in a bit). What’s more, Nintendo has tarted up the device’s music player with some funky features that let users record sound and lay it over commercial tracks, alter pitch and playback speed, and apply sound effects.

AAC only music player - Fail

Granted, the majority of people who listen to music on-the-go do so with an iPod, which leads one to believe that much of the music in their libraries is encoded in Apple’s AAC format. However, the lack of support for MP3 or WMA files will be a bummer for everyone else.

DSi Shop - Pass

Nintendo’s new online store, available only through the DSi (the original DS and DS Lite haven’t the means to access the shop or to store downloadable content), is set to become a warehouse of cheap, fun games, social networking applications, and various other amusing and useful bits of software. Get started with a the free web browser, then try out Wario’s new camera-based micro-game adventure, WarioWare: Snapped! which costs just five bucks.

SD card slot - Pass

The DSi’s new expandable memory is used to store both music and downloadable software from the DSi Shop. What’s more, now that the platform has its internal storage as well, game saves could be kept on either the system or an SD card, which otherwise severely tax the limited memory found on the regular DS game cartridges. (Sadly, there are 100 million regular DS units out there that don’t have onboard memory or memory card capability, and developers would be foolish to neglect those users, which means the likelihood of this convenient, cost-saving measure ever being developed is slim.)

Larger screen - Fail

More visual real estate sounds like a plus, but the number of pixels hasn’t increased. Instead, they’ve simply been made… larger, which, depending on the keenness of your eye and how closely you jam you face to the screen, can make images appear less crisp. In short, stretching the same resolution onto a bigger screen is a trick, not an improvement. Plus, bigger screens require more juice. IGN reports that, at maximum brightness, the DSi delivers only three to four hours of play time, whereas the DS Lite offered five to eight. At least the charge time has been reduced from three hours to two-and-half.

No GBA slot - Fail

The DSi’s lack of backwards compatibility with the Game Boy Advance isn’t a great issue - those who still have a collection of old Game Boy games probably have an old Game Boy system to play them on, too. Still, until now it’s been nice to have the option of playing Mario Golf, Golden Sun, or Fire Emblem without toting two systems around. Plus, old Game Boy games are cheap like borsch at garage sales and in pre-played bins the world over. Now they’ve nowhere to go but the landfill.

Dual cameras - Pass

Like many modern phones, the DSi sports a pair of cameras; one facing the player when the device is open, the other on the back of the top shell, allowing users to snap pictures of their environment using the top screen to frame the shot. As with the DSi’s music software, the picture utility offers lots of fun ways to play with your images, whether it’s warping pictures, adding text, or creating a kaleidoscopic effect. No revolutionary, but handy. And fun.

Dimensions and weight - Pass
The DSi may be four millimeters wider and one millimeter longer than its predecessor, but in the all-important depth department Nintendo has shrunk the device by two-point-six millimeters (it now has a girth of just 1.86 cm). What’s more, they’ve trimmed off four grams of mass. The difference in size and weight is minimal, but you’ll notice it when system is slipped into a jacket pocket.

OS upgrade - Pass

One of the most aggravating aspects of both the original DS and DS Lite was that users were forced to restart the system every time they changed a setting or switched applications. The new DSi operating system functions more like the Wii’s, allowing users to quit out of settings menus and applications and land back at the system’s main menu. It’s a small improvement, but one that significantly enhances the overall user experience.

Power cord - Fail

The DS Lite power cord is not compatible with that of the DSi, and vice versa. It would have been nice if people upgrading from Nintendo’s previous handheld could keep one cord at work and one at home, eliminating the need to haul a charger back and forth during commutes. And that’s to say nothing of the comfort and security inherent in the knowledge that you won’t be screwed if your charger mysteriously disappears or gets chewed up by the family pet.

Cost - Fail

At $170 USD or $200 Cdn, the DSi is $40 or $60 more than the DS Lite. Put another way, it’s roughly the same price as the dramatically more powerful (though decidedly less portable) Xbox 360 home console. Should consumers make that comparison, the DSi might begin to seem inordinately costly. Hint, it is.

Overall - PassThe DSi’s fun new functionality easily outweighs its minor drawbacks. Indeed, the DS Shop alone ought to be enough to entice anyone who is serious about his or her handheld entertainment. Storing games on the hardware used to play them - which keeps software at the ready and eliminates the possibility of losing cartridges - is undoubtedly the way of the future.However, one wonders if all the new bells and whistles will be enough to entice financially freaked consumer to make the stretch, if cheap online game purchases is a good enough cost offset, or that there’s an actual need for yet another portable music player or photo capable device in the house.

Even so, there are more than enough DS-loving gamers around to make the DSi a success, a great many of the 100 million current DS owners will probably leap at novelty of it all, if not simply replace the old DS they snapped in half when they accidentally sat on it.

Nintendo’s new toy is pretty much destined to become the standard for handheld gaming, probably sooner rather than later. The 11 “new” features listed above are only of questionable value because the whole package is a tad pricey. Drop the price and even the failures will come off as tolerable fails while the passes will be value-added.