Went to Target at around 8:30 and they had a bunch of both colors. Picked up a Red, took it to the car and opened it. Pitted (scratched?) screen. Took it back in, showed them, and they replaced it on the spot. Showing up early has its perks since I was pretty much alone in the returns department. They grabbed another red unit and this time we opened it in the store and the top screen was a completely different color than the bottom. The employee was even surprised. Got a third one, and this one appears to be fine. Charging it now, but while going through the initial setup it became really apparent that people who complained about the speakers were 100 percent accurate. It's awful. When the volume slider is near the bottom, but not at the bottom you should still hear audio. On this, after around the mid-way point on the slider the audio just goes away, and even at it's highest point the thing doesnt come anywhere near as close to being as loud as my old 3DS. I have no idea if that's a defect or by design. Either way I hate it.
Now as for the 3DS XL itself, it's great to have big screens again. The first thing I noticed about the XL is that its really slippery. Be careful when you pick it up. It's a matte finish, but it's a slippery matte finish. I was hoping for a DSi matte, but this is still better than the fingerprint magnet that my old 3DS is. Not sure if I like the shoulder buttons yet. The old 3DS's shoulder buttons had a lot more click to them, these don't. And while the home/start/select buttons are a huge improvement, there's not enough click to them. In fact I'd say there's almost zero click. The dpad is in the same spot as the 3DS, but since the device itself is bigger, it's now comfortable to use. The slider and face buttons feel the same to me. All-in-all I'm happy with it simply because of the added real estate, but as a piece of tech it feels really cheap. It looks cheap, and it feels cheap. Probably because it is cheap, but Nintendo needed to make money off it, so can't really blame them. Going to use it today before I'm sure it's a keeper and then I'll do the transfer tonight. The only thing I absolutely hate about it at this point is the terrible speakers. Just terrible. I won't risk another return though after the (semi) nightmare of the first two.
My advice is to open it in the store, or outside while in your car. And do so carefully because it's kind of a surprise how slippery it is. You'd hate for the first thing you do when you pick up your new handheld is to drop it. Enjoy New Release Day, everyone!
They sound exactly the same to me.
All this shit about "yellow screens", "system scratches itself still", and "garbage speakers" are BS. Mine has none of those issues or anything remotely resembling any symptom of those issues.
This is wrong.