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[FightyF]

...rather than a games machine.

I'm not a fan of the hardware, personally I think it's a waste of effort...that is until they make PDA applications for it, as well as include a Web Browser.

Here is a review at GearTest...interesting, it goes into some of the problems the DS has.

http://geartest.com/sections/games/nintendo_ds_0.html

The question mark is whether or not Nintendo will create the PDA and Web Browser software...but I think that it should be a priority.

Now you may wonder why I wouldn't get a dedicated PDA...I don't use Outlook so I don't care about Syncing...and the price seems reasonable since I get a games machine (with good soft support) at the same time. Plus PDAs in this price range can't surf the web AFAIK.

 

[aoi tsuki]

Forget using it as a web browsing device. Just forget it. the resolution is pitiful to display web pages, which at a bare minimum, are coded for 640x480. They contain Flash. Most use style sheets and Javascript. A few use Java. Some sites use HTTPS, like banking sites. On top of that, some pages are just too large to load completely, like any thread on GAF with a 56k warning. Put simply, there's just too much involved with web browsing to make it a major consideration for purchasing a portable unit.

i occasionally use my PDA for web browsing, but the real killer WiFi apps are email and IM software. This is mainly because the built-in keyboard is so usable. But even with a 480x320 resolution, a lot of sites are shrunk down so small that if i wasn't familiar with the site, it would be worthless to browse.

i don't expect Nintendo to release PDA software, but i'm sure there'll be a few third parties who pick up the slack. i'd love it if there was a developer who used a T9-style text entry method and had a stuie of PDA apps -- web browser, contacts, datebook, and a memo pad. i might leave my PDA at home once in a while.

Now you may wonder why I wouldn't get a dedicated PDA...I don't use Outlook so I don't care about Syncing...

Synching is for much more than Outlook. Basically, you have an application on your PDA, and sometimes a similar desktop version for your PC. Whichever version has the most current info gets copied to the other. If there's no desktop equivalent, the data on your PDA gets backed up to a folder on your PC. It's a very handy function. If you want to add pictures to your PDA, just add them to whatever program handles it on your PC, sync, and then they're on your PDA. Or if you want to write some notes to read later on your PDA, open the desktop notes program, write, sync, and it's on your PDA.

 

[duderon]

:lol :lol :lol

 

[aoi tsuki]

:lol :lol :lol

i suppose it's about as funny as the guy in one of the PSP thread who said he was getting a PSP for movies moreso than games.

 

[kaching]

If this were to happen, the cart/card that came with the PDA apps would also have to have some form of storage (extra flash memory) to hold contacts, appointments, notes and any other data you need to store...that'd probably jack up the price a bit, depending on how much they offered.

And I agree with aoi tsuki's general sentiment that trying to surf the web wouldn't be so hot with any sub VGA resolution device. Email and IM like he said are good, also network apps formatted for these type of displays like Avantgo, Vindigo and so forth. RSS feed aggregators are good too. But generic web browsing would be very meh.

Of course, somebody's got to code all of those apps for the DS...

 

[Project Midway]

Forget it.

Buy a real PDA and wait for Nintendo DS emulator (if you have interested in DS games) while enjoying good resolutions and real browsing

 

[jooey]

I'm thinking of getting a DS as a PDA and Net Browser...

so I guess thinking isn't a regular activity for you.

 

[Brofist]

:lol:lol to using the DS only as a PDA

i suppose it's about as funny as the guy in one of the PSP thread who said he was getting a PSP for movies moreso than games.

I'd give a hearty :lol:lol to that one too. Why anyone would buy a PSP only for movies instead of a portable DVD player for the same price is sooo stupid I can't begin to comment. Portable DVD players all have TV out, and the fact that there are like 10 billion DVD movies.

 

[Chittagong]

this must be one of those viral marketing activities. The brief for the poster must have been to "increase the awareness of Nintendo® DS portable game system as a versatile, multifunctinal device with uses beyond gaming by discussing potential features such as browsing and PDA use, thus increasing Nintendo's perception as a company with products for a mature demographic."

 

[seismologist]

Forget it.

Buy a real PDA and wait for Nintendo DS emulator (if you have interested in DS games) while enjoying good resolutions and real browsing

Buy a $600 PDA with VGA screen and wait 4 years for a DS emulator. You'll be set!

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

way to buzzkill the guy aoi....



you ass

 

[radioheadrule83]

Actually it'd be fine for web browsing WAP 1.2.1 upwards. It's an attractive feature on phones, and it'd be a really simple applet on a DS card. Most phones just give you scroll bars for any high resolution pages you try to view. The system RAM, as well as memory on the cards would provide memory dwarfing that of the average phone too. The problem as another poster said would be plug ins that regularly update. Like Flash etc.

I'm pretty sure someone is definately going to try this though. At least testing the prospects of such a product, even if they never put it to market.

Nintendo are working on wireless chat protocols, and Bandai have them interacting with PCs. Square-Enix are toying around with DS and PlayOnline.

I agree that it needs one of the major IM platforms like AIM or MSN. PictoChat is great, but that would really seal the deal on the machine being a viable communications and gaming tool IMO. It would be awesome. I think this system is going to be really good for RTS, point and click adventures, and other PC/PDA style applications that traditionally use mouse or stylus. I really think they should exploit this angle, because I don't think they're doing a good job of showing the uses of the second screen (outside of their own software). Not yet anyway. The only really attractive thing in the dual screens for me at the moment is that my view won't be totally screwed and obscured by my hand and a pen on at least one screen.

 

[Deg]

wap is rubbush. HTML type stuff all the way.

 

[seismologist]

Im interested in the PDA features but just as a nice bonus.

Things like the built in calender and alarm clock will come in handy too.

 

[GSG Flash]

Well, if I remember correctly, a third party publisher is releasing PDA like software.

 

[Project Midway]

Buy a $600 PDA with VGA screen and wait 4 years for a DS emulator. You'll be set!

4 years? :lol

And he said he would buy it mainly for surfing and PDA features. Who would buy DS *mainly* for surfing and PDA features? I can only think hardcore nintendo-worshippers.

 

[snapty00]

You probably won't have to wait nine months for a DS emulator. The ARM processors themselves are ALREADY emulated. Getting the rest of the system emulated will be a piece of cake.

Assuming that the system had a large touch-screen, it'd be easy to just split the touch-screen in half to emulate to screens. It would probably be easier to see, too, since you'd be looking at both "screens" at the same angle, as opposed to the real DS where you're looking at two screens at different angles.

 

[seismologist]

I'd be surprised if that happens. DS supposedly has dedicated 3D hardware as well.
There isn't even a proper N64 or Saturn emulator yet. how long has it been?

 

[Che]

No way man you can browse with that screen resolution. And by the way I would like to say hello to the two trolls of this thread.

 

[snapty00]

I'd be surprised if that happens. DS supposedly has dedicated 3D hardware as well.
There isn't even a proper N64 or Saturn emulator yet. how long has it been?

The difference is that the two ARM processors are already openly emulated.

It's also going to depend on how much people want it done. If this is something people want, or if it appears to be a challenge, then it WILL be done.

 

[seismologist]

I think the point is he wants to pay low cost for a dedicated game system with minimal PDA features. I sort of want that too.

Of course the alternative is to buy a $600 PDA and hope they come out with a decent emulator so you can steal all your games. $150 DS looks like the better option for me anyway.

 

[cvxfreak]

DS? Only as a PDA? What's the point?

 

[seismologist]

The difference is that the two ARM processors are already openly emulated.

It's also going to depend on how much people want it done. If this is something people want, or if it appears to be a challenge, then it WILL be done.

I'm sure it'll be done the question is how good can it be? There's already reports that the DS touchpad is more sensitive than your average PDA. playing DS games on a PDA where the timing is slightly off would suck.

 

[Justin Bailey]

The difference is that the two ARM processors are already openly emulated.

It's also going to depend on how much people want it done. If this is something people want, or if it appears to be a challenge, then it WILL be done.

Yeah it might be emulated in nine months, but there isn't a PDA out there powerful enough to run it smoothly. They can barely do SNES emulation fully.

 

[Dilbert]

As much as I'm sure it would be a cool hack, from a usability standpoint, it's a dumb idea. More and more, I'm not a fan of "convergence devices" -- they try so hard to be everything to everyone that they fail to be excellent at ANY of them...or at least at any more than one function.

There really isn't a good portable web browsing device of ANY description right now -- even PDAs provide a pretty lousy experience compared to what you're used to on your desktop. If you want portable email access, you might be able to get a BlackBerry cheaply through your cell phone provider, and some of them even have browser capabilities.

 

[seismologist]

There really isn't a good portable web browsing device of ANY description right now -- even PDAs provide a pretty lousy experience compared to what you're used to on your desktop. If you want portable email access, you might be able to get a BlackBerry cheaply through your cell phone provider, and some of them even have browser capabilities.

That's what I'm thinking too. There's no good portable web browsing so if the DS can do it cheaply that might be good enough for now.

 

[Brofist]

I'd be surprised if that happens. DS supposedly has dedicated 3D hardware as well.
There isn't even a proper N64 or Saturn emulator yet. how long has it been?

no proper N64 emulator yet, that's a good one :lol

 

[SantaC]

no proper N64 emulator yet, that's a good one :lol

The N64 emulators out there is like 60% compatible. They can't even emulate castlevania 64.

 

[Brofist]

What N64 emu have you used that runs 60%? I'm not gonna go into too much detail since emu speak is a grey area here, but the N64 emu I run makes games run off an actual N64 look like a pile of crap. The game that it has the hardest time was definitely not Castlevania 64 btw.

 

[LakeEarth]

The N64 emulators out there is like 60% compatible. They can't even emulate castlevania 64.

Castlevania 64? I played that on an emulator almost a year ago.

 

[iapetus]

i suppose it's about as funny as the guy in one of the PSP thread who said he was getting a PSP for movies moreso than games.

Except, of course, for the fact that Sony have committed to providing movies for PSP, whereas last time I checked, Nintendo wasn't planning to produce PDA and web browsing software for DS, and given their general attitude to online and the purity of games consoles as games consoles, I wouldn't be holding my breath either.

Get a PDA.

 

[neptunes]

my sister just got the Tungsten/E and it rocks, and she got it for $139CDN=/=$99US

It has the same arm9 cput the ds has and the amount of FREE games that are available for palm pilots is quite a lot.

 

[Mason]

my sister just got the Tungsten/E and it rocks, and she got it for $139CDN=/=$99US

It has the same arm9 cput the ds has and the amount of FREE games that are available for palm pilots is quite a lot.

I just looked it up, and those are selling for $150-200, not to mention that the games like Madden cost anywhere from $20-40. If it really is $100 somewhere, I'd be interested in buying it.

 

[PkunkFury]

"Nintendo says that its wireless networking has an effective range of 30-100 feet, however we were unable to test this claim. The wireless networking used the 802.11-based Wi-Fi wireless local area network (LAN) of the offices we were in."

"Developing a mobile Web browser also immediately comes to mind when one considers the proliferation of wireless 802.11 hotspots."

Does this indicate we can indeed hook the DS up to a hotspot for pictochat?

 

[GDGF]

Except, of course, for the fact that Sony have committed to providing movies for PSP, whereas last time I checked, Nintendo wasn't planning to produce PDA and web browsing software for DS, and given their general attitude to online and the purity of games consoles as games consoles, I wouldn't be holding my breath either.

Get a PDA.

Yeah, get a PDA and a NDS. Then your bases are covered.

 

[FightyF]

so I guess thinking isn't a regular activity for you.

Well, I'll explain my thinking...

Price:
The DS is pretty cheap compared to PDAs with those type of connectivity features. AFAIK that one Tungsten mentioned doesn't have wireless web browsing capabilities, correct me if I'm wrong.

Web-browsing:
The DS has the advantage of two screens, which could mean easier browsing if the developer was smart enough.

I would hope would be used to make browsing a bit more easier by having the bottom screen supersampling the site from 800 by 600 to the size of the screen. In this bottom screen you can have a red rectangle signifying which portion of the site you are viewing in the top half (which will be a pixel per pixel representation of the site). Touching the bottom one and moving the rectangle around will change the top half. So you can view the entire site in it's native resolution. A lot like how the Dreamcast web Browser worked when you zoomed in.

It's going to be a real cheap solution to go online. As such I'm not expecting anything that would compare to devices twice it's cost. But the way I look at it, you don't need anything too fancy for a PDA. A pocketsized touchscreen and some software is all you need. A minikeyboard may help, but I think I'll do just fine with the touchscreen.

So to sum it up, for the price it can't be beat. I'm not looking to do online banking or using Flash...just something I can google anytime for info whenever I need it. I got hotspots at work, at school, at home...I just need something to pop out when I need to know some general information. I wouldn't mind having it by my game consoles when I need to find a quick tip, walkthrough, or cheat.

Now the question is...will anyone make the software? Secondly, will it be some half assed attempt or something really good?