DS Loves Opera, Macramé
The Scene: Oslo, Norway. The time: today. The players: Nintendo DS, the fiery lil' handheld-that-could, and Opera, one-time underdog internet browser now playing fast and loose with all kinds of Nintendo products.
The word? That the Nintendo DS Browser has been released to both retail and Nintendo's online store for DS Phats and Lites. Europe's had the browser since last fall, and Japan even longer, but now North America may dip its styli into the fountain of innovative web browsing.
What innovations, you ask? There's the fit-to-width mode, which was originally designed for mobile phones, that shows web page content in a single column across both DS screens. Or there's the DS mode, which sounds rad: on the bottom screen is a zoomed-out view of the site, while the top screen shows a movable thumbnail - presumably manipulated by dragging the stylus across the zoomed-out page.
The Opera marketing spin:
"With the DS Browser, Nintendo continues to expand the possibilities for users of this tremendously popular game platform. Opera is excited to work with Nintendo to bring the easy and accessible way to browse the Internet to DS lovers in North America. DS Browser makes it easy to check news, popular user generated content sites or comparison shop while in a Wi-Fi hotspot."
I think it's a sweet idea, and I can't wait to put my lil' lite baby to the test. Will she beat PSP browsing? It would be hard not to. Will I ever use the DS browser? That's an even better question.
Opera Releases Nintendo DS Browser [Gamasutra]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 8 June 2007
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: ds, nintendo, nintendo ds browser, opera
I got it. It's pretty good. I'm impressed with the quality of page rendering and graphics rendering. Check out flickr if you have one, it's great!
I did check out manhunt and leatherbear.com and they both work just fine - thank god! I have yet to check bigmusclebears.com Very cool for when I'm traveling and don't want to bring the laptop or need to check my email at the coffee shop.
Worth it? Definitely!
I much prefer the experience over using my Helio which has a crap browser.
It has some javascript support and NO Flash support so that sucks if you're into the newest web services or Flash-based video/music sites. Other than that, it's pretty great.
But I use the sleep function heavily when playing my DS. Most of the time when I'm ready to browse, the DS is mid-game and I can't switch carts so I end up using my phone.
I've been using my lousy cell phone web browser for a couple of years now, even used Opera Mini which was a step up, but Opera for the DS is really great. Granted I haven't been surfing gay.com (not that you'd be able to chat on it without Java) or pr0n sites, but settling bets using Google or getting directions from.... well, Google.... works beautifully.
Some people have complained that it's slow compared to their laptop or whatever, but I think it's more fair to compare it to a cell phone.
Thanks for turning me on to manhunt.net and leatherbear.com, leatherVT. Bearfront and Silverdaddies work fine on the DS, and now I have a few more to try which are hopefully a little more active. Think you'll come down for Bear Albany's next thing in July?