Nintendo DS Browser
I picked up Opera’s browser for Nintendo DS on a whim today, mostly for the sheer novelty of browsing the web on a Nintendo handheld. I decided later that since it will constantly be in my DS case with the rest of my games, it might actually come in handy in some situations.
I normally look up professional reviews to attempt to make an informed purchasing decision, but oddly, there are no professional reviews of the software. Electing to take the risk, I bought it anyway. It couldn’t be THAT bad, right?
First, let’s clarify what the DS browser is and isn’t. While a fairly competent browser, this does not make your DS a replacement for your laptop at your favorite coffee shop. It renders basic modern web content correctly (CSS, images, etc), but skips some very important content like flash and AJAX. Though most of the internet “works”, you will not be surfing with this software; I tried, and it’s just too slow. The browser IS useful for basic internet tasks: checking email, weather, stocks, etc. In this respect, it is also infinitely more manageable than browsing the web on a standard mobile phone, which is like dialup on downers. I really think it would have been trivial to implement an RSS aggregator, and could have made for an extremely useful feature — MUCH more useful than the accurate but painfully slow and ultimately pointless handwriting recognition “feature”, but I don’t make the rules.
The intent here is clearly for the user to set up a couple useful favorites and use them in a pinch. With images disabled, the browser is slow, but not unbearably so. I successfully read several of my own blog posts, later flipping images on and browsing several of my image galleries. I favorited the search page of Wikipedia, reading a couple random entries there, and it worked beautifully. My Gmail account loaded very fast, even with images enabled, and checking my email went off without a hitch. Unfortunately, cookies are deleted when the system is turned off, so you can’t store any usernames or passwords. I have to type in my annoyingly complex password every time I turn the system on to check my email.
Overall I’m not disappointed with the purchase. Browsing the web on the DS is actually a pretty incredible feat, and I think it’s pulled off about as well as it could have been. It’s a little slow, and the lack of flash is disappointing, but if you’re around public hotspots with your DS often, this could be an extremely handy addition to your library — just don’t expect to sit and browse to pass the time.
Clever idea: Off the top of my head, I think a very useful/DS-friendly site would be Gamefaqs, which would allow you to read along in an FAQ while you were away from your computer… like, for example, in front of your TV playing games.
