This review is highly subjective and is only my very own personal opinion. ;P
Design: 9/10
Neat design, beautiful colors, not many flaws. Same size and approx. same weight as DS lite. The D-pad is a bit hard to reach. Analog pad is nice.
Included games/software: 9/10
I love those augmented reality (AR) games. You can shoot at targets, dragons, your own and your friends' faces and stuff. The music player has great visualizers. A daily journal records all of your activities and ranks games according to playtime and number of plays. It's pretty neat.
I wish they'd inluded a dictionary software as with the DSi, as this would be immensely practical.
3D effect: 9/10
I have a little background story... As a technology I was always interested in 3D and when I go to electronics stores, I always try out 3D TVs. I was disappointed that the screen got darker when you put the glasses on and I couldn't see the 3D properly sometimes. With the 3DS, the picture is very bright and beautiful. At first I didn't really see the 3D effect, but I guess after a little while I got used to it and now I can see it pretty well. The picture is very smooth and I find myself always using the 3D turned on, because to me it looks more beautiful. I think it's definitely personal preference, so everybody has to find out for themselves. So why 9 and not 10 points? Well... the 3D just looks nice and as far as I can tell now it doesn't really benefit you in the games.
Online: x/10 (right now: 1/10)
I was very disappointed that the e-shop together with the VC wasn't ready at launch. My only question is why? I mean we know from videos that the first 2 VC games are totally ready, the DSi shop also already exists, so why don't Nintendo just open it up for the 3DS?
In the Professor Layton game you can download new puzzles every day. The puzzles are available on 0:00h every day and the download is very fast. If the e-shop and other online functionality is as fast, that would be great.
Battery life: 6/10
For me personally the battery life is OK. Not great, but OK. I can get through a day without charging, so I'm fine. After 2 days of moderate use (wireless ON, highest brightness, power saving OFF) without charging the battery indicator started flashing telling me to charge the unit. I mostly play at home, so charging in between gaming sessions is no problem. If you play more than 4 hours every day outside of your house away from a power source, you should consider buying an external charging unit or playing less. ;)
DS games on 3DS: 9/10
DS games are scaled up to the higher resolution and look a bit blurred. To me this is expected and not a big deal at all. The games can be played OK. You can also play the games in their original resolution by pressing select and start simultaneously when starting up the game. I wish they'd implemented this a bit easier. Also you cannot switch between display modes while playing. That's a bit disappointing. Wouldn't it have been possible to use the 3D slider for this?
Cameras: 6/10
It's nice that you can take pics of yourself and 3D pics with 2 cameras on the back of the lid, but to be frank, the implemented cameras are crap. The pics are grainy and you need very good lighting conditions to make a decent picture. For playing around the cameras are sufficient I guess, but I was expecting slightly better quality.
Miis: 9/10
You can make Miis based on photographs That's fun. You also have more hair, eye and other parts to choose from. You can receive other Miis through StreetPass (I got an ugly one yesterday...), via QR codes and other methods. The editing is easy and quite fun. I deducted 1 point because there's still no possibility to change the bodies a lot.
Overall: 8/10
Conclusion: Personally, I love the 3DS. BUT! I was very very very disappointed that the VC and the DSi ware shop aren't available yet. When all that is there my overall score probably goes up to 9/10.
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