In 2004, Nintendo announced the DS, a handheld system that was supposed to be a “third pillar” to compliment their Game Boy platform and whatever failing console they had out at the time (a.k.a. the GameCube). Though endless skepticism plagued Nintendo leading up to launch, they kept their cool and somehow delivered what has come to be the most successful gaming platform on the planet. After releasing a redesign in the form of the sleek DS Lite in 2006, Nintendo has once again blessed our restless wallets with another redesign, the DSi. The question is, “Is it worth it?”

Never before has the phrase “it depends” been the best way to answer this question. The matter of whether or not you should get a DSi rests in some key factors, most notably of which is how excited you get about the new features it flaunts. Working from the outside in, let’s start with the cameras. There are two camera lenses on the DSi—one on the inside and one on the outside. The outside one is for the obvious purpose of taking pictures of your surroundings, but what’s notable about the inside camera is its potential usability in future DSi games. Already, the DSi Ware downloadable title (more about this later) WarioWare Snapped! uses the .3 megapixel camera to literally put you in the game and make you partake in the traditional WarioWare zaniness. The camera won’t replace your Coolpix or Powershot, but it’s a nice little feature to have, and I look forward to seeing how developers use it in future releases.

Next on the update list are the bigger screens. Each screen is notably larger and can attain higher brightness levels. On a related note, you can now adjust the brightness in-game using a combination of the select button and the new and much more functional volume control buttons on the side of the system. I should note that the bigger screens don’t distort or noticeably stretch the image of any DS game I tried, and it all looks great as far as DS standards are concerned. The only issue I had was that at the brightest level, the colors definitely seemed to be a bit washed out.

The DSi also has a slot to take SD memory cards. Though the system has 256 MB of flash memory built into it, this is a way to expand the memory capacity or view pictures and listen to music. The expanded memory will be nice for the future releases of DSi Ware, but I had some issues with the multimedia functions. The SD slot is a pain to open, plain and simple. Though this may not sound like a big issue, it’s magnified by the fact that there is no way to link a DSi to a computer. This means whenever you want to add a file or manage a folder (perhaps because for some reason your system is not reading any of your pictures or reading any of your music because it’s so damn picky and Nintendo had to restrict everything to only AAC music files) you may end up giving up in frustration. But hey, if you do manage to get your pictures on there, you can use a nice little program that lets you crudely edit them. Think less Photoshop and more Wii Photo channel. It works to kill some time, but don’t expect to get more than a few minutes out of it. The music function is as bare-bones as it gets, and I don’t recommend that anyone who already has an MP3 player try it. You can also record sound clips using the built-in microphone and then edit the speed and pitch. There are some other tools like the ability to make your voice sound like a parrot’s, but again, this is simply a distraction from the rest that the system has to offer.

Alright, it’s time to get away from the gimmicks and into what makes the DSi truly worth it: The DSi shop. As on the Wii, you have the ability to download various pieces of software on the DSi. At the time of this writing, there is a handful of games to download in addition to an internet browser that connects through Wi-Fi. I love the idea of the shop and the ability to download new software directly to the DSi itself, but the structure is limited and will only make things confusing in the long run. Navigation is smooth enough and features a simple, user-friendly interface that is very Wii-esque. Once downloaded, each piece of software will have an icon on the main DSi Dashboard which features a row of channels that work as links to anything you need. The biggest issue with the whole shop is the downloading itself. It works fast enough, but Nintendo still hasn’t figured out a way to let us download things in the background while we play. Is it that complicated? Call Sony or Microsoft—it’s been on their consoles for over two years now! But I digress; the fact that you can download games on the system is a huge plus and one that will make the millions of DS Lite owners envious, especially when Picross 3D comes out. The future library on the platform will be huge and I look forward to a potential DSi virtual console allowing downloads of classic Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and possibly even Game Gear (anyone?) games. At the moment, however, it’s good to be grateful for what’s there.

Let’s go back to the question, “Is it worth it?” If you don’t own a DS yet, then yes, it’s certainly the most fully featured and sleekest version of the little handheld so far and offers the best library of any platform on the market right now, across handhelds and consoles. If you already have a DS Lite or the original DS, then you have to look at the features that you’d be gaining in addition to the ones you’d be giving up. There is no Game Boy Advance slot anymore to accommodate the slimmer exterior. This means no Guitar Hero: On Tour, no interaction between past and present Pokémon titles, and no Tony Hawk Motion (I know, it’s tough). If you can live with that and really need a mediocre camera and have the hope that Picross 3D will someday be released on the US DSi Store, then by all means go for the upgrade. There’s a reason the DS continues to print money for Nintendo, and this new redesign proves it further.