I really wanted to wait for a colored DS Lite, but I couldn't resist. :cry: Anyway, here's my first impressions.
Love:
- The slender design. It fits into your pocket without any unsightly bulging. The clamshell is great, too- the system is "seamless" when it's closed. The original let you play peekaboo with the buttons when it was closed, and that's just silly.
- Brighter screen! You'll have no idea how awesome the screens are until you see it for yourself. Compared to the lite, the DSheavy feels like you're playing with sunglasses on.
- New stylus and touch screen. The new stylus is awesome, it no longer feels like you're playing with a children's toy. The touch screen is great, there's no more blatant plastic sheet covering it up; yet the touch screen still feels incredibly hardy and scratch-resistant, perhaps eve more so. Dragging the stylus across the screen feels kinda iffy, though. Not as... smooth.
Notlove
- Argh, the speakers are terrible. The sound is muffled pretty bad, and it's not very loud, either. The Lite was definitely designed with headphones in mind.
- New buttons. The layout is good (oddly, the control pad does not line up with the ABXY buttons, but that's not really a concern). My big complaint is the new buttons themselves. They seem to have reverted to the GBA buttons, which feel a lot less responsive. The control pad is real "jiggly", too. My little Animal Crossing guy was beebopin' all over the place. Getting him to move diagonally took a needlessly concentrated effort.
Bottom line... sadly, the Lite doesn't feel like a complete 1-up from the original DS. I'm not going to say that you shouldn't trade up to a DS Lite... but I would definitely be cautious of the move if your budget is tight.