Hardware Review | Opera Nintendo DS Browser

Looks pretty damn snazzy on your DS Lite James! Great work

Nice!

Can you watch game trailers etc, or does the DS not support it?
Also, do you have an idea of how quick it would work with my wireless, which runs at a speed of 54.0 mbps?

Good stuff James. I should have my C3-2-1 review on this up in a few days.

DS doesn't support any video or sound media. 54.0mbps varies depending on your actual connection speed (i.e. 512kbps, 1mb, 2mb, 4mb, 8mb etc)

Aye, it isn't supportive of much multi-media web content, so no exciting sounds, videos or anything like that which is a shame. Still, it is bloody good as a portable Internet device.

Its funny reading this, because most reviews that I have seen of it were pretty negative. Hey, I'm not really going to be doing any major internet trawling whilst waiting for the train anyway so it looks okay. I just can't get over two things - Why didn't they make it updatable via WFC and why didn't they support PDF. No, really. Why.

Don't think i will get this, but the Wii has Opera built in doesn't it?

Yeah the Wii has Opera built in.

I will probabully pick this up if the price is right so I can casually surf the net when im out and about or when I can't get on the computer but I just want to check something, anyway great review.

I can't wait to be able to get on the internet wherever in my house, it's a real shame about the loading times, worse than 56k?

That, for me... would make it's score about 6/10 TBH ^^; although I've never used it, so I'll keep an open mind 'till I use it.

Still, good review, I still wanna get it a lot!

It looks good, and also speed problems may be less when its out properly in europe.
(else its going ver japanse severs).

What annoys me is theres so many simple features that could improve this device so much, like newsfeed support, or an email reader.

Homebrew solutions have existed for those for a few months now.

How well does this work on Google sites anyway?

I am a heavy user of GMAIL, GoogleMaps and Google Calender.

Do any of them work? how well?



" just can't get over two things - Why didn't they make it updatable via WFC and why didn't they support PDF. No, really. Why"


a) Because putting any writeable memory, let alone a lot, in a DScart is expensive.
b) Because PDF's are a bloody heavy format. The PSP cant do them, theres no chance the DS could. If you want to read PDFs, use google and then "Open as HTML".

( Edited on 31.08.2006 00:01 by Darkflame )

?

Surely all it needs is an internet connection.. it won't need to connect to any server in particular,

Not very good - Gmail works okay, limited, but usable. Not tried GoogleMaps/Calendar, but will do for when I do my review on it later this week

Hopefully in the near future, a third party releases one that is compatible with flash...

This review has been really positive compared to the other reviews that I have seen. I don't see this as being a justified purchase for me. I can understand the reasons why someone would need one for low bandwidth things such as emails and feeds but I easily have access to these things at home and at school which is where I am most of the time.

I also agree with you guys about making more sites compadible with this. No other reviews I have read have failed to mentioned this at all.

Is there any possible signs of downloadable improvements for the software? Also is there any Opera Voice support? I have just gotten into it and love the idea.

( Edited on 31.08.2006 06:04 by Nexus )

Nice. It loks better than I thought it would. Imglad it works with Cubed 3 but will you be able to post on it?

you want to post with DS? in the forum? Clearly DS isn't for typing, then why you want do do so?

Use Opera-DS for these things and you will be happy:
* browse http://www.cubed3.com/lite/ and check cubed3-news the WAP-way,
* check your gaming sites, which do not rely on flash for navigating (Advantage: No Flash-ads!),
* check in your local Best-Buy, Mediamarkt or whatever if amazon gives you the DVD you want to purchase any cheaper than this store
* andandand

It isn't good for watching trailers (buy a PSP), checking eMails (buy a PDA), play Flash-games (plug in real games like... all DS games), see your Flickr-album (I think it's too heavy a graphics for that) or other fancy-heavy-CPU-usage-stuff.
You guys all know what a waek CPU is? So bear that in mind and avoid everything which make DS breake a sweat - and compiling postscript (that's what a pdf is) is certainly one of them, others are flash, Web 2.0, heavy graphics sites and big evil signatures most of you guys use here in the forum.

With all that has been said about this browser. Do you think some gaming sites such as this one will make a 'lite' version of the forum too?

This would be great as then we can see what people are chatting about anywhere without having to wait for it to load forever.

I don't see why we can't make a 'lite' version of the forums, but the DS isn't the easiest thing to write lots on, so it'd be a bit slow and making good, constructive and extended posts would take forever. I don't know why reviews have been so negative, it does the best job possible with the limited power of the DS and I think it is a great little portable browser.

Aye, I'll be developing an extended Lite version of the site soon. Now that I've got me DS Opera I can test it out on the fly

It really isn't bad as some other sites have suggested. I really like the touch screen writing recognition - some have said it's slow, but I prefer it!

Look forward to it. The browser seems quite good considering he power of the DS.

I may use this software if it came free with something.

But I'm buggered if I'd pay 30 quid for it. Not supporting video or music playback is a major kick in the left nut - YouTube/Google Video compatability would've really boosted the potential of this browser. Limited mail functions is a kick in the other nut.

( Edited on 31.08.2006 13:16 by artmonkey )

Slower the 56k? WTF? Is that only with the Nintendo dongle?

No it's just that the DS isn't realy powerful enough to load web pages and stuff.

No it's just that the DS isn't realy powerful enough to load web pages and stuff.

Actually the DS just does not have enough ram. Since the browser requires extra RAM to be plugged into the GBA slot for cache storage. Nintendo could at some point release a larger stick of ram . More than likely though, the browers will be updated and ship with a larger stick of ram.

Since ram improves upon graphics, I'm wondering if the gba ram stick will improve upon the DS graphics? Sort of like the 4MB Expansion Pak for the N64. Or does this feature have to be specifically programed to work? I wonder.

If Opera is popular, which you can count on, then I'm sure more GBA memory cards will be made, with more space, RAM, whatever.

I think slower than 56k is.... horrible

So I assume it won't be too good for viewing images either? They'll prolly take a long while to load, so a Lite C3 would be great...

How's the typing though? Comapre it to PictoChat! If it's better/as good as the PictoChat typing, then I'm happy! Animal Crossing typing is too delayed...

It's a shame we can't judge how popular it's been as it isn't tracked by Media Create in Japan.