Those eager-beavers over at Kotaku have the first (that we’ve seen) hands-on review of the upcoming Nintendo DS Lite. The Lite, for those who haven’t been following the portable gaming market, is Nintendo’s redesign of the chunky, ugly (chugly?) original DS, released about a year and half ago in the US. The Lite is, as you might have guessed, lighter. It’s also smaller and has some of the features repositioned – such as the microphone and power button, and the d-pad and buttons are firmer.
Most importantly though, the DS Lite has the improved screens that were recently debuted on the upgraded version of the GameBoy Advance and Micro. It’s the screens that really make the object drool-worthy for me – I would have bought a DS long ago, but when I first picked up a friend’s unit I just couldn’t get over how dim and lo-res the screens looked. The DS Lite is only available in (or imported from) Japan, starting March 2, but will be hitting the US in a few months.
Tip: Lik-Sang has it for US$170.