I would take a picture of my newest gadget like I normally do when I post about them. But it seems my brother, or my dad (no one wants to admit to it) left the camera in New York. So I must just do my best to describe it.
It’s called R4DS, or “Revolution for DS” which basically turns my Nintendo DS into an Mp3 and Video Player, Picture Viewer, and best of all, lets me play ROMs on it. It’s for the Slot-1 on the DS, which is the regular DS Game slot (as opposed to the GameBoy Advance slot, which is Slot-2, duh). Which means it’s really small, and nothing protrudes out of my pretty little DS Lite.
Anyway, I’m not gonna go through all those details, cause it can easilly be acced on the R4DS Site… So yes, here’s my thoughts. First of all, I was a little pissed cause I bought a Mini SD cause I thought that’s what it took. But I was wrong. It’s Micro DS, which meant I had to run back to Future Shop again after I went home. But that was ok, cause Future Shop had a sale on a brand of Micro SDs which meant I got 2gb, for just $20 more than a 1gb card.
On that note, if someone was planning to buy R4DS for their DS, I would definately suggest the 2gb card. A little bit more expensive yah, but honestly, it’s always better to have left over space than to run out of space… Also, take note that the R4DS site has some specific brands that they know for sure are compatible. There was actually a 4gb card on sale as well for $100 (down from $180). But it wasn’t on the approved list of cards, so I was too scared of buying it and it not working (also because they would have to order it in).
Also beware that there’s some installation to be done, which actually confused me at first. Also, the software included in the CD was out of date. But the update was available online (not actually an update, you pretty much just had to replace the old one altogether). My problem with that was their decision to archive the files in .RAR format, which meant that I had to download another program to unzip it. I would have prefered if they just suck with .ZIP. Also, the installation was actually pretty complicated (the install is actually just copy and pasting files into the root directory of the MicroSD card). Cause they go through it kind of file by file (well, they said to do one file. Then a directory. Then another directory… They should have just said copy everything inside thise folder into the root directory. I don’t understand why they had to go through it in “steps”).
I haven’t had the chance to play with the skins and stuff yet. It looks a little complicated at first glance, but I’m sure it’s not. I’m just amused by the skins that they have on it already (it seems like it’s by calendar months. So they match the picture with the theme number- theme 4 is April, so the picture is of flowers). Figuring out how to skin it will definately be my first order of business once my exams are over.
I was a little annoyed that it doesn’t play WMVs, cause about 98% of my music library is WMVs. But it’s ok. I recently bought a software set, which included an Mp3 encoder. This made it really easy for my to convert some of my WMVs to Mp3s. So I wasn’t that annoyed. What did test my patience a little more was the conversion of video files into the DGP file that was required. The included converter (dgpenc) sucked, and kept freezing on me. So I had to download a new one, which actually turned out really good (which is why I say it only “tested” my patience a little). Once I figured that out, it was actually pretty easy converting my movie files into DGP.
As for quality of the audio and video, the Video was amazing. I put the newest cut of our Biyahe Tayo video in, and it was really good. I’m also about to watch The Unit on it (it’s been converting while I’m typing). I’m a little concerned about the sound, because I had it set to the highest setting already, and using my Sony Noise In-Ear Phones, I could still bear the loudness. Which means that most likely when I’m in a subway, it won’t be able to overpower the noise from the outside. We’ll see exactly how it is.. But not for a little while cause I don’t know at the moment when the next time I’m in a subway is.
The games were also amazing. The quality was really really good. It’s basically like playing a regular game. I got Pokemon Diamond already, and a few other titles that were hard to find around here. I figured I’ll try them out, and buy the ones that I really like.
Hmph. Well I think that’s about it. Overall, I’m really glad I bought the R4DS. I had been considering replacing my Mp3 player for a while already. And for the same price (actually, maybe a little less). I was to get an Mp3 player, Video player, and more. Sweet deal.