Nintendo 3DS

At first look, the 3DS is nearly identical to the DS Lite and DSi. It's the same smooth, plastic, clamshell rectangle with two screens, a direction pad, and various buttons for playing video games.

The most notable physical differences on the 3DS are the analog control pad, the larger, 3D upper screen, and the two-lens 3D camera.

The front-facing camera for user photos is still a single-lens component that can only capture 2D photos, this time located above the upper screen instead of on the inner hinge, like on the DSi.

From a pure gameplay perspective, the analog pad is the best addition to the 3DS. It's a concave rubber circle that can slide around in a circular area, like the PlayStation Portable's analog pad. It's much more comfortable than the PSP's pad, however, sitting naturally under the thumb and offering just the right combination of firmness and springiness.

The stylus now fits vertically in the back of the 3DS, right next to the game card slot. It telescopes to a length of nearly 4 inches, making it much more comfortable to hold than the original stylus.

A slider switch on the right edge of the 3DS controls the intensity of the 3D effect, or can disable it entirely. A small, spring-loaded slider switch can enable and disable wireless communications, to preserve battery life.

On the hardware side, the 3DS includes both a conventional, DSi-style charger and a charging cradle in which you can drop the handheld.

It's not an induction charger, despite its drop-in convenience; putting the 3DS in the cradle pushes down a lever that pushes out two small wires to touch a pair of contacts flanking the power cable jack. It's still much more convenient than a conventional charger you need to plug into the 3DS, but it's not the same no-contact technology products like the Powermat use.

Nintendo also includes a set of AR Cards for use with the preinstalled AR Games game on the 3DS. A set of 6 cards featuring Nintendo characters work with the AR Games title to produce an augmented reality effect: put a card on the table, point the camera at it, and AR Games makes 3D statues of Mario, Samus, or Link pop out of the table.

While it measures approximately the same as the DSi, the 3DS is almost 3 ounces lighter.

The 3DS looks almost exactly like a DSi at first glance, but under the hood it's a completely different device.

The game card slot is slightly wider than the DS' card slots to accommodate the small tab on 3DS game cards.

The Nintendo 3DS brings us up to the present. Nintendo is planning on releasing the 3D-capable system March 27th. Aside from the obvious addition of a 3D screen, there's now a thumb pad that sits above the D-pad, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and better graphical perfromance. However, you will have to trade in that cush 8 hour plus battery life you got with your old DS for around 5 hours of battery life on the 3DS.