Disassembling the US Nintendo DSi

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday iFixit tore apart the Nintendo DSi and found several internal upgrades from the outgoing DS Lite. It seems that an experienced hand can completely disassemble the DSi in less than ten minutes using standard tools, especially since the job does not require a tri-wing screwdriver. This should make repairing and tinkering with the DSi substantially easier. The DSi now includes two integrated cameras that, unfortunately, have only 0.3 megapixel resolution. This is certainly a bit underwhelming considering most mainstream phones have cameras of at least 1.3 megapixels. As for chips, Nintendo is using a Samsung MoviNAND integrated 256 MB Flash memory / MMC controller chip, as well as a custom ARM CPU + GPU is stamped with the revision code 'TWL.' The DSi's chips all had manufacture dates around September 2008, indicating that Nintendo has been stockpiling these devices for quite a while prior to the North American release."

Interesting

[AKAImBatman]

I'm surprised that they decreased battery capacity. I thought the reduced battery life was a side effect of the component upgrades. Apparently, that's not the case. Even more surprising is that the DSi mainboard is technically smaller than the DS Lite, but the unit has a larger footprint thanks to an expansion board hanging off the side. The board appears to be the contact points for the system's buttons.

I wonder if the larger footprint was necessitated by the larger screens? One would think that Nintendo would shave off a bit of space from the sides, but perhaps that didn't yield as good of a grip as the DS Lite.

Re:Homebrew applications, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Current cards don't work but there are DSi cards already being demo'd.

As of right now they're not for sale, nor any input on if older generation cards can be flashed to DSi mode.

Re:Homebrew applications, etc

[Djehuty3]

R4s, Edge, M3 et al will not work on the DSi - however, the newer "EZ Flash Vi" and "Acekard 2i" both will. I am not aware of any other DSi compatible carts though.

Re:Stockpile means nothing

[SCPRedMage]

Or they built them, waited until they had a decent amount, and released them all at once, instead of having massive shortages like when they launched their LAST console...

Underwhelming.

[wiggles]

This rev of the DSi is really underwhelming. I traded my old DS phat in for $50 off of the DSi, and though the upgraded screen is nice, I'll never use the damned camera. It doesn't support mp3. Downloadable games are nice, but I haven't found a single one worth downloading at launch. I'm hoping somebody comes up with a way to play old snes roms on it via the SD card -- if that happens, then my purchase was totally worth it. Otherwise, I'd have stuck with a DS lite if I had that option.

Re:0.3 Megapixels...

[bencoder]

cameras mounted on every Wiimote are only 320x240, I believe.

actually they are 1024x768 and can capture very fast, but presumably it's mono only. There's also no way(in software) to get at the output of it, before it goes through the SOC that does blob detection.

Re:Homebrew applications, etc

[trytoguess]

Actually, there are cards that work on the DSi. http://www.dsiflashcard.com/ [dsiflashcard.com] I'd still wait until there're cards that can mimic the DSi only and works better on DSi cartridges.