The Nintendo DS is something skeptical to look at, but thats the outer clamshell. What this device really is, is a wonderful way to play games. On the go. On the run. And all the more fun.

The DS is named DS for ‘dual screen’ odviously it has two screens, one for below and one for above. The bottom screen is a touch screen. Its amazingly responsive, not to mention it is used greatly enhance the gameplay experience.

The Speakers are astounding on it, with surround sound enabled you can actually hear a lot more, from left to right.

There is also an in built microphone that can listen to the users commands efficiently. With Nintendogs, I can command my dog to ‘sit’ ‘shake’ and ‘rollover’. I can also blow into it on Mario Kart to blow up my battle balloons. In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney I can yell for objection in my court cases.

It's embedded in a clamshell design that makes it damage proof when closed. One time I ran with it in my pocket and dropped it and it dragged along the concrete for a while. A few scratches, but the screen wasn't damaged at all.

The best part, I would have to say is the multiplayer component. Now equipped with Nintendo Wifi Connection, you can play Mario Kart and Tony Hawk Sk8land online. Not only that, but if you have a few mates around you with their DS, you can play an 8 player game with one DS card. One card, 8 DS, all can play! It uses a wireless connnection so ditch those wires.

I would say this device is THE best in portable gaming. The PSP doesn't actually fill the shoes the DS has in terms of gaming. In terms of multimedia, thats a different story.

First of all I would like to mention that I own a PSP and now, a DS.

The very first thing you notice about the DS is that it appears to have a lower build quality than the PSP, most notably in the control buttons and d-pad all of which CLICK rather than depress. It's also noticeably lighter.

While each individual screen is smaller than the PSP screen, the overall screen space is ample. The sound quality of the built in speakers is superior to those of the PSP. Big tick mark!

Loading times “near instant”. HUGE tick mark!

Touch screen? You get the feeling that it's there to emulate mouse input, but it works well.

Built in mic? A neat feature. Necessary? Maybe not, but it does add functionality so it's a plus.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to get the DS is backward compatability with GB/GBA games. In fact I think the DS succeeds exactly where it needs to – portable gaming.

At the moment, I lean more towards my DS than my PSP. If the PSP ever get's a “killer app” then my loyalty would shift. I got the PSP around the week it released, but have only had my DS for less than a day and have used it more than my PSP.

That's what I call a recommendation.

BTW: DS games save to the game cart so no need to buy atrociously expensive memory cards for savegames. MASSIVE tick.

I was doubtful about this ever since I heard of the idea. Bah! 2 screens? so what? does it do MP3s?

However when I played one out of curiosity, I actually have to say… This is probably the most fun game console ever!

The screens work well, the graphics are excellent, the gameplay is superb…

Nintendo had better haul ass though and get some more decent games going on. Super Mario 64 DS is all well and good but I want Metroid soon! And they would do well to make some sort of MP3 player add-on or something if they don't want to get their asses kicked by the PSP with its fancy doo-dads (and complete lack of original games :-) ).