Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room antenna released there 3dsxl back in August of 2012 here in the states and a little over two years later Nintendo has made some improvements and refinements to their system now the big question what are they since this new device looks practically the same and not a total redesign so let's take a look at what Nintendo dubs as they quote new 3ds XL priced at $199 as of this video i'm your source for making a purchase decision welcome to jim's review room going over the physical features first they do indeed look practically identical in both size and thickness even when weighing them the old 3ds versus the new one they are identical or at least very close to being so now the main difference from just a glance is the new paint scheme it's visually more appealing with now a very glossy paint with an underlying diagonal pattern now granted it looks nice when new but after a few minutes of playing this thing is for sure a fingerprint magnet now this is both on the lid and on the bottom of the device as well but let's go over the physical connections on the front the new 3ds moves the cartridge insert here instead of having it down the back now three and a half millimeter headphone port is in the sensor now with the stylus pen and power buttons slightly moved to its new location it's not a bad position for the pen that is but it doesn't feel as natural to get as with the old 3ds which had it on the side now rotating to the right the 3d button remains on the screen for adjusting your three-dimensional depth and the Wi-Fi on/off button is now completely removed now one thing I wanted to mention antenna remove this slot to access and remove your full-size SD card unlike the old model this same 4 gigabyte size has changed to a micro SD card form factor but it's actually behind the cover which you have to basically unscrew now swinging all the way over here the volume slider is on the left side of the screen and not on the main body anymore and basically the left side is pretty simple but now rotating to the rear the back has your standard left and right shoulder buttons the new zr and ZL buttons similar to what we've seen at the circle pad pro specifically for previous gaming titles like Resident Evil Revelations and Kingdom Hearts 3 d8 now you will also notice that the charging port has moved to the middle and one thing for folks who are not aware the new 3ds XL does not come with a charging adapter that's right you can't charge your portable device unless one you've owned a previous 3ds or 2d s and still have the adapter or two you buy a new one altogether which isn't too bad it's about 10 or 11 dollars but still it's an add-on which I'm sure will catch some people by surprise but opening up the device here it looks just cleaner with small changes to the layout just one home button to the bottom of the screen here with your start and select buttons move to the far right the nice addition of colors to the a B X&Y buttons adds a nice touch but more importantly let's look at the screen now I know it's hard to tell but in person the new 3ds looks to be slightly brighter and the colors looks more accurate on the old model there appears to be like a slight pink or red tint on the screen that I noticed now both still feature the same screen size measuring 4.1 8 inches for the touch screen on the bottom which is still very responsive not like a glass ring tablet but for this it still works fine any 3d screen is still the 4.8 8 inch LCD now granted both screens doesn't have much to talk about in regards to resolution or pixels but having this new 3ds being backwards compatible is a huge plus now most older games from the old 3ds 2ds and even some nintendo dsi games still works on this new portable device and I think adjusting the resolution would be Nintendo having to upscale or rerender some of its games so they clearly played it safe here but I have to say it actually works basically keeping majority of their Nintendo gaming ecosystem compatible by going back to the screen here although everything discussed so far is really just relocating parts to streamlining their design the first biggest update is the new face tracking feature for its 3d performance now on the old 3ds a slight nudge would cause the screen to show jagged or double images where the 3d would basically be off you had a sit at the right position and not real move to get the optimum viewing angle I guess you can say and if you're on public transportation where you know bumping around a little bit you can almost forget about having that 3d experience and with the new super scale 3d is what Nintendo dubs it you can jolt in jostle or lean to the right or left and for the most part the image stays together still producing that 3d image perfectly it's actually a huge improvement in this case for the end user experience now as for those who never owned a 3ds before a 3d feature is shockingly well done without the need of glasses there's a decent amount of depth perception that does not make you dizzy and I personally get motion sickness in the car or airplane pretty easily and never once did the new or old 3ds affect me and it's really intriguing playing games with a bit more immersion because of this technology and by any chance you don't want 3d you can always use the slider to tone it down a bit or off altogether but going down the list here additional new features include a faster processor and increase of RAM from 128 to 256 megabytes now from real-world testing it's not as noticeable when playing current games since they're mostly optimized to work on older systems now when newer games are released I'm sure the extra power will then be better utilized but as for opening apps the new system does on average open an app like Netflix slightly faster by a second or so again not much of a huge improvement realized in the real world at this time but it is technically faster now one big improvement that was noticed was the camera holding them side-by-side and turning the new system just works that much more fluid and just looks cleaner now the last update Nintendo provided is offering up meebo and NFC supports to be built in this newly introduced feature allows you to collect and add characters to your game level up or customise them in addition obtain bonuses and special items now the great thing about these is you buy one and it's good for multiple games coming out now and into the future all you have to do is tap your chosen character and to the new 3ds screen and your character will be uploaded into games like Super Smash Brothers currently now other minor tests and user experience that I performed was battery life and I was able to get 6 hours of straight gaming and playing around with the operating system and what which is normal for Nintendo you can say now for those who intend on using this for Netflix both loaded movies at practically the same time there wasn't much performance difference that I noticed for the screen and the new 3ds does look much more natural and more accurate than that red tint and the old model and for the speakers it sound practically sounded identical either model didn't show or seem louder or better from my experience and to answer your curiosity videos are not shown in 3d on Netflix or YouTube unfortunately so I know some people were questioning or skeptical considering this isn't a total redesign and I think Nintendo was intending this to be an upgrade for most people especially for those who are coming from that small screen of the 2d s and not to mention this doesn't even come with a power adapter and I think Nintendo is expecting you to use the old systems adapter and just bring it over here but anyways for those who are on the older 3ds systems the refinements on the new system does improve the experience especially these super stable 3d performance but for the most part battery life performance physical build it's practically the same now don't get me wrong it does add up to make this a more streamlined handheld but I'll be honest again it's really up to you if you see value in upgrading let me know in the comments below but my opinion for those deciding to upgrade are not from the old 3ds I really don't think you can go wrong either way so hope this video helped you in some way if you like my work add me gems reviewer onto Facebook Twitter and I'm on Instagram now or Google+ as I normally post updates on items I'm currently testing before I put them on the website again this is Jimmy wood Jim's review room you guys take care and I'll see you on the next one bye you