Oh yeah, forgot to cross-post my impressions from the Best Buy thread.
~ 3DS System - Aesthetics ~
- Outside shell:
The model I played around with was "Aqua Blue". I'm not sure if that's what I would call it but then again I can see how it might be hard to classify it as any one particular color. It's almost... three-tone? Incredibly hard to describe. It goes from this gorgeous dark blue at the camera edge to a really deep turquoiseish green kind of color. It's really pretty, and it looked nothing like what I had seen online. Even that video I post over and over doesn't really do it justice. It kind of conveys the two-tonedish color but the color looks all wrong on film.
- Inside shell:
A lot of people thought that the blue was going to come off as garish or distracting or contrast too much with the black, and that's just not the case. The blue looks really good in person and I had no problem with it at all. It's a different color than the top, more a kind of turquoise. It all works very well together, however, and it doesn't contrast at all. "Blends" would be a good way to put it, I think. One color just kind of melds into the other.
- Device as a whole:
Drop-dead sexy. Anyone who says it looks like a toy is either trolling or has some of the sleekest toys known to mankind, because damn. Black or blue, I don't think it really matters. It just "works". The sparkly effect seems to be greatly exaggerated in photos, and is there but very subtle in real life - and it looks very nice. Even with a giant magnet attached to the bottom it looked great. Much smaller than I was anticipating, despite the fact that I've seen tons of comparison images.
~ 3DS System - Functionality ~
- Slide pad:
Amazing. Not like the PSP at all. Has just the right amount of give and my thumb never got close to slipping off even once. Very comfy and easy to use, highly precise, and extremely responsive. Worked fantastically for Pilotwings.
- D-Pad:
Clicky and very responsive. Felt way better than my mushy DSLite D-Pad. I have no complaints about the location either. It seems like if I chose to use it for extended periods of time for whatever reason that I would have no problems in doing so.
- Buttons:
Very clicky with plenty of spring. A million times better than the DSLite. I was surprised at the Home, Select, and Start buttons being clicky. I would've thought for sure that they would be mushy, but I was pleasantly surprised. The shoulders felt great as well and seemed to have more travel than the DSLite's, which in testing them now feel rather "flat".
- Touch screen:
Works just the same as any other DS touch screen, albeit at a higher resolution. The stylus did feel rather nice, I must say. The minimap for Pilotwings was really detailed, and it's obvious that the screen has benefited from the bump in resolution.
~ 3D Effect and Screen ~
- 3D effect:
Worked perfectly. I had no problems whatsoever with it, and opted to play with the slider maxed almost the entire time - sans testing how much of an effect it had and 2D mode. Pilotwings seemed to utilize both a bit of pop-out (especially in the opening video) and "pop-in", as it were.
The best way I can describe it would be to tie a little plane model to a string and hold it in front of a window that looks outside over the landscape. The model is the plane in Pilotwings, the window is the 3DS's screen, and outside is the landscape in Pilotwings. It's like looking past the little model and seeing into this diorama.
I played with 3D maxed, like I said, and had zero problems with headaches or eyestrain, even when playing for a good half-hour straight with the effect maxed on the game that is apparently the worst for giving headaches. Granted, this is a guy who can do parallel or cross-eyed 3D images perfectly and instantly and has been doing so (at least in the case of cross-eyed) for years now. As that same person, the effect is really great. It's definitely real 3D, there are no gimmicks here. It's very pronounced and looks fantastic.
With the slider right above off, there is still a noticeable effect. However it's more like the kind of effect you get from a 3D movie. You've got the foreground action separated from the background. Kind of weak, I think. I will always be playing with the slider maxed.
- Sweet spot:
Way bigger than I thought it was going to be going off of impressions. You can hold it anywhere from around six inches in front of your face to over a foot away and the effect remains intact. Going from the top screen to the bottom screen does not break the effect at all and seems just as natural as it was with the DS.
You can rotate the system side-to-side (think like a steering wheel) quite a ways before the effect breaks. The only time you're going to have trouble maintaining it is when you twist the system forward and back (think like a mounted machine gun). There is still some give but the effect breaks much more quickly like that than it does in any other way. Hell, you could view the screen with the system tilted forward so the screen was basically on a parralel plane with your vision (think lying down and looking up at your TV from the floor right in front of it) and the effect still works just fine. That was the most surprising thing to me.
I don't think that the sweet spot is going to be a huge issue. From what I saw it was very forgiving.
- The screen itself:
Gorgeous, sharp, and very bright. Enabling 3D does dim the screen ever so slightly, but even then it was brighter than the brightest setting on my DSLite. I'm not sure what brightness they had it set on but I would imagine it was on the brightest setting. Any brighter and I would have trouble looking at it even in broad daylight. I have no doubt about where that battery life is going, that's for sure.
~ Addendum: ~
Forgot to mention the fingerprint coating. The back of the system didn't have very many so I attempted to muss it up as best I could. It took quite a bit of work to get a really impressionable fingerprint on it. You had to really jam your thumb down. After I did a fairly decent job of covering it with fingerprints I took my shirt and wiped it off, and woah. Not like my colbat DSLite at all. Instant and not a trace left.
