DS Browser Reviewed!

It was just a matter of time until the DS would catch up with the PSP when it comes to mobile browsing. The Nintendo DS Browser, which was built by Opera, has its pros and cons as you will find out further down in the review.

Read the rest after the Break!

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Nintendo DS Browser Specifications:

- Browser Engine: Opera 8.5
- Formats Supported: HTML, XHTML, XML, ECMAScript, CSS (There are some functions which won’t be fully supported.) SSL 2.0/3.0, TLS 1.0 (Depending on the website, some of them can’t be used.)
- Formats Not Supported: Flash, Movies, Sound Files, PDF Files, and other files which require plug-in.

From the list of supported (and non supported) formats, most people will think the browser is a complete waste of time, a gimmick to the gaming world, something you just don’t need. Of course it would be nice to stream those YouTube videos to you handheld device, or to log on into your own server and listen to Music you have uploaded. But the truth is you don’t need these things when you are on the move.

Major Pros:

I quickly found myself loving this software simply because there is a great library of websites which have special pages designed to be viewed on devices such as PDA's, or now the DS Browser. Some examples are BBC News, Engadget and 4 Color Rebellion. Although these pages look really good, any blog style page will look good on the DS Browser, just because Opera has built a really good reformatting engine. It takes the page and displays it in SSR mode (Small Screen Rendering Mode) which takes the page and formats it so it is displayed over the two screens in a vertical way. I’ll talk more about the actual features in just a minute. Checking E-mails is also a major plus point. It is really easy to check, view and even write emails on the DS Browser. Especially on Google Mail, which doesn’t have too many images, the Browser runs at high speed and it is a comfortable way of checking emails. Keeping track of your bookmarks is another major plus point. The built in bookmark manager lets you create folder and save bookmarks easily. For example, I have a News, Gaming and Email Folder which all have several links in them.

Major Cons:

The most disappointing feature about the DS Browser is the fact that I have to enter my username and password into fields every time I visit the site. For example, visiting Gmail doesn’t just take a couple of second load time, but about a minute of typing in your username and password every time you want to check your inbox. This is due to the lack of saving cookies I guess, but I’m not too sure on that… To be honest, that is the only major disadvantage of the DS Browser I can think of. Many people complain about loading times, but I don’t consider that a con since working with such a mobile device can’t really give you any better results.

Features:

The main features of the DS Browser are:

- Two viewing modes, SSR and Overview Modes

- Screen shot Mode

- Search Engine

- Handwriting recognition and On-Screen Keyboard

- Bookmarks

- HTML Help Center

As I have mentioned before, the SSR Viewing mode is the one to use if you’ll be reading a lot on the Browser (which is really the only thing you can do…). Mainly because SSR stops that annoying left and right scrolling and focuses on just scrolling up or down. This is extremely helpful when reading blog entries or e-mails. Screen Shot Mode is something you won’t be using much, or at least I haven’t used at all. It allows you to take a screen shot of the bottom page (when you are in SSR mode) and it will display it on the top screen. I guess if you really need to look at something while wanting to look at the rest of a blog entry it is useful, but other than that forget about it. Now, here we go! Where the DS Browser impressed me really was the ability to read my handwriting! I have to say my handwriting really isn’t all that good but the DS has been able to recognise all my letters (except for q and g – it gets those mixed up quite frequently). It takes just a couple of minutes to send an email to a friend or to let your mom know when your coming home. Websites that let you send SMS are also great on the DS Browser. Although I don’t use them, some websites allow subscribers to send a couple of SMS a day, meaning that if you are a cheap guy and are near a hotspot, you can easily send SMS for free. The search feature is another good feature that helps you get around the internet easily. The default browser search is Yahoo but you can easily change that in the setting. It works well and although there isn’t much to say about this, it is a really helpful tool. The Help Center is really useful when you first get used to the Browser but after a while you won’t be using it at all. It is nicely formatted, and runs fully in HTML letting you click on links and view descriptions of items

Conclusion:

All in all the DS Browser has a lot to offer and compares well to its competitors (well the PSP browser really). It doesn’t support flash which is it’s main disadvantage, but considering you’ll just want to check your mail on the go or read you latest news on BBC it’s a great way to do so. Overall a good choice for mobile Browsers!

Related Link for the DS Browser: | Just type these into the URL on your DS and hit Enter!

BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/text_only.stm

Engadget:
http://m.engadget.com/

Joystiq:
http://m.joystiq.com/

4CR:
http://lite.4colorrebellion.com/