Nintendo DSi Teardown

dsiteardown

Now that the Nintendo DSi has been officially released in the US, the team at iFixit has worked their magic. That magic being: completely disassembling it. They found the new 840mAh battery to be much smaller than the DS Lite’s 1000mAh. The device features two cameras, but both are a paltry 0.3megapixels. They note that this is the first Nintendo device that they’ve taken apart that didn’t require a tri-wing screwdriver.

Many more DSi compatible flash carts are available now than our initial report in December, so you can pick up a Nintendo DSi for homebrew without worry.

[via iFixit blog]

27 thoughts on “Nintendo DSi Teardown

  1. “first nintendo device that they’ve taken apart that didn’t require a tri-wing screwdriver.”

    Guess they never took apart a Nintendo Entertainment System.

  2. Here’s my list of DSi flash carts:
    Acekard 2i
    DSTTi (or something like that.)

    Annnnd that’s it. I already ordered my Acekard 2i, and I just bought the DSi today. (Microphone doesn’t work, but I don’t especially care.)

  3. What’s up with the poor resolution camera? Every ad I have seen for this thing is showing the picture editing capability. I can’t imagine that a 2 mega pixel camera would change the price by much, they are being used in every cell phone you get these days…

  4. The DSi screen resolution is 256×192 anyway so it is pointless to think a higher resolution camera would do any difference.

    ArtemisGoldfish : some games like Zelda Phantom Hourglass require the use of the mic.

  5. Does anyone know if the DSi USA versions are region locked for games? I live in Japan, and wanted to get a Japanese DSi until I heard they just got released in the US- there’s a fantastic Japanese game called “bimoji training” that teaches you how to most aesthetically and properly write Japanese with a brush- it comes with a special stylus.

    If that would work on a US version DSi, even with a special chip, I’d wait. Anyone know?

  6. Since this is still recent news, I’ve been looking since I posted yesterday- there are indeed some articles stating what you said alex- things that are hardware dependant are region locked, but the games themselves aren’t, at least that’s what I’m hearing so far.

    So this is great news- I should be able to order my game from Amazon Japan or something, and play it on a US DSi, when I have more money! Yea!

    This was, in my opinion, a good move on the part of Nintendo (at least, if it holds). There are plenty of people who can understand Japanese abroad, and love games.

  7. @_matt: can’t speak about the GC or N64, but the Wii definitely has screws that need a tri-wing screwdriver. You can usually manage to get it if you have a flat screwdriver that’s the right size to fit into one wing of the slot, but it’s much easier with a proper tri-wing.

  8. @matt they weren’t even hex screws, they were a proprietary screw bit that the snes,n64, sega Genesis, etc used for security purposes. You usually have to go online to find the bit.

  9. I’ve just putt a random memory card stick in my brand new DSi (sony card) and my DSi can now recieve radio transmissions.Also,the memory card allowed me to load all NDS and GBA roms… which is odd.

  10. weird… I can load all the roms as if the games were original from a local-brand SD card named; Kurac-Pizda (KP)23i …it sells for like 5 EUR. Kurba from KP sucks big time.I suggest the 23i for all of you. go to google and search for Kurac Pizda 23

  11. HI THERE THE AUDIO AND PITURES BEFORE ALL FUNTIONS WERE RELEASED YOU HAD TOO FINISH THE TURAL I HAD TOO TAKE 3 PITUERS BEOFRE EDITING OR DELETING AND HAD TOO AT LEAST RECORD A AUDIO FILE TOO BEFORE I COULD EDIT OR DELTE THE PITUERS

  12. Hi,

    Was wondering if some one has developed any software to run on a pc or wireless access point to “broadcast / bridge” pictoChat packages to some kind of public community for world wide chatting or similar. or to extend local DS games WW?

    I’m so unimpressed of those friend codes and the unavailability to chat/play and challange people from all over the world in games and chatting!

    Would be nice to have a messenger like sw and public chat rooms…..

  13. Is there any DS game supporting multi users online, where you could chat and team up online in games?

    Would be fun if there was some kind of “SecondLife” or “Battle field” multiuser game

  14. about the cameras..? would u be able 2 mod a better cam to the dsi..(more likely the outer 1 seeing the way its shaped)say 1 from a cell phone..we all have old phones…and ive got alot junky ppl i know that always have stolen cell phone they try to sell 4 $20 or $25 a pop..
    im just wondering if its possible..?????

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