It’s becoming awfully redundant of these hardware impressions, but I’ve got to say that the first thing I thought when I cracked open my DS was, “damn, that thing is small.” I imagined the box would be a good fifty percent larger than it actually is.

This small factor can be attributed to many aspects of the system. With the exception of the screens, which look appropriately sized, many parts of the DS are tiny. The four face buttons are all slightly smaller than those on the GBA SP, though the D-Pad is slightly larger. The stylus is surprisingly small. It’s approximately two-thirds the size of a standard Palm stylus. It was uncomfortable at first, though I eventually figured out a good way to hold it and maintain solid control at the same time. DS games themselves are also very small, just a tiny bit larger than a Secure Digital (or SD) card.

The DS is also a very light system. This is very important, considering much of the time the system will be held with only one hand. It feels only slightly heavier than a Game Boy Advance SP. The shoulder buttons have been changed since E3, and are now similar in size to those on the original Game Boy Advance.

The system boots up quickly with a little fanfare on the top screen and a health and safety warning on the lower screen. Thanks to some recent legal trouble, this warning is standard on pretty much all Nintendo games now. On the bright side, unlike on GameCube games, the warning doesn’t put another screen in between you and your game, because it is displayed during boot-up. After touching the lower screen to pass the warning, the system will either go directly into the inserted game or to it’s menus, depending on an option that may be changed in the menus. If both a DS and GBA game are inserted, and the auto-boot option is turned on, the system will load the DS game. Finally, games must be inserted before the unit is powered on, otherwise it will not detect them.

There are lots of options that can be changed around in the DS’ menus. The date and time can bet set, and a color can be chosen for the menus. There are also setting for: an alarm clock, a birthday setting, language, a personal nickname, a personal message, and touch screen calibration. Also included in the main menu are options for setting up DS Download Play and PictoChat.

After finishing with options, DS Download Play (if you cancel out), or PictoChat, the system forces itself to shut down. This can easily become very annoying. There is no way around the shut down. It powers down and the power button must be pressed again to turn it on. It’s unfathomable why the system doesn’t simply restart itself instead of requiring the user to do it manually.

Apart from these few very minor annoyances, the DS is a very enjoyable system to use. It takes a little getting used to holding the unit with one hand and the stylus with the other. It’s easiest to play while resting the DS on your thigh. The touch screen is highly responsive and accurate. Although it takes a while to get used to, eventually the touch screen does start to become a very natural method of control. It’s quite an impressive system, and hopefully will bring much innovation to the handheld gaming market.