About a week ago when Target had a sale on all their 3DS's I decided it was the perfect time to buy one. I'm a huge fan of Pokemon so the news of Pokemon X/Y coming to 3DS this year pretty much confirmed I was going to buy one by years end. So I picked one up at the Best Buy I work at (Price match) along with Pokemon Rumble Blast, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: GtI, and Mario Kart 7 and have now had a week to play with it. 

Aesthetics/Build-  The console itself looks great. I bought the Blue XL and contrary to what I thought before the blue doesn't look as girly as it looks on the box. It feels ok in the hands and all the buttons feel really nice although the D-pad feels like its in a weird position. The only thing I can say that I hate is the damn circle pad, whoever decided what kind of rubber to use on it and not give it some sort of texture should be soaked in a tub diarrhea and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. The Top Screen is underwhelming, it's nice and bright but the 3D doesn't add a whole lot and its resolution makes things look jaggy.

User Interface- Besides the circle pad this is where things literally got ugly for me. The interface is just so... bland. Its just a bunch of grey with only the app squares giving some color. Theres also no customization, no backgrounds, not even an option to change the palette coloring. In short I hate it; it functions well but I hate it.

Games/Functionality- As stated before I have 3 games for it so far. Mario Kart is fun as to be expected and i've played it the most out of the 3. Pokemon Rumble Blast was worth the $10 I paid for it but not much more since its just alot of button smashing. Mystery Dungeon i'm not going to comment on since I haven't played enough of it to have a good opinion. Besides games the 3DS has very little functionality. It has Netflix, a web browser and some Nintendo themed calculators that you have to pay for, thats about it. No other games that are out have caught my eye so untill one does I'll be left with Mystery Dungeon and MK7.

In conclusion and as most of you can see the 3DS hasn't left the best impression on me. It's not a bad console its just not the handheld for me. I REALLY hope Pokemon X/Y is worth $200 since that is essentially what i'm paying for it. In the mean time i'll continue to play through my New Game+ on Persona 4 golden until Soul Sacrifice releases.

What a coincidence I got a 3ds for Pokemon and some other games too. Your first impression isn't that far off from what i experienced. It just felt like a upgraded ds with 3d, wasn't impressed at all but the games are what made me buy one.

Yeah the games themselves are good but what i'm worried about is if the console itself will make me not want to play anything on it if that makes sense.

Yeah, it makes total sense. You will probably forget about the console itself when you are playing a game you really like, get immersed in it and stuff.

Games sell consoles. Even if it's a crappy console.

i didn't like the first 3ds. it kinda hurts after playing one hour. but the xl is really comfortable. i don't know what you have against the interface to be honest. i personally don't care for customization for backgrounds/colours on a console. and the first party titles are great as expected with ocarina 3d as number one.

Are the buttons on the XL softer? My thumb hurts from pressing A.

Sad to hear you're not impressed. I was in the "XL? Hell no!" camp before but then I got my black 3DS XL and I really love it. You'll get used to the low resolution soon and I'm sure there are other games you'll enjoy. The 3DS has a great library of games already (as long as you don't have an aversion to Nintendo games) and there'll be much more over the course of this year. Is there really nothing that looks interesting to you?

My eyes don't hurt after 4 hours, my thumbs don't hurt after 4 hours, I can keep playing for hours lots of games.... MK7 - Pokemon Rumble and the other Pokemon are not a reflection of all 3DS games - I mean... really?

Ever tried KI? or Resident Evil?

I suggest you both (BlowoverKing and Veritaz) to sell the 3DS right now. 1 Pokemon game is never worth $200.
And by the comments of your you will be happier without a 3DS!

"it functions well but I hate it"
What? You hate something that works well? That doesn´t make sense. But I´m assuming that you just hate it because you don´t like the layout of the menu. Maybe you´d prefer something like the floating circles of Vita.

"Besides games the 3DS has very little functionality. It has Netflix, a web browser and some Nintendo themed calculators"
Are you really talking about the 3Ds? C´mon.. It has a music player, microphone, 3D camera (you can see videos using a converter - I even watch movies on it), Swap Note, FlipNote Studio, MiiPlaza (for Streetpass), you can buy others, like Colors 3D for drawing/painting or a Scientific Calculator. And soon Miiverse. It´s clear that you really didn´t explore all that your device has to offer.

As for the games, there are way better games available than those.