Nintendo 3DS - Thoughts & Impressions

Back around Mid-August when Nintendo had dropped the price of the system from $260 down to $160 I had made up my mind that I was going to go ahead and try the system out.
My old faithful DSi has served me well for the past 4 years, however it was getting to be time for an upgrade. My main issue with my old DSi was that the L button no longer worked.

So, without further adue, my thoughts on the system.

Nintendo had a great thing going with the DS line of hardware. The 3DS is no exception to this.
The system's interface is very sleek. Nintendo has taken the Wii's "Channel" setup and copied it here. It works very well.
Included with the 3DS is a built-in web browser. The unit handles web browsing better than the older DSi, yet certain functions are missing such as FLASH support.
Also surfing image-heavy web pages will bring the browser to it's knees. It's only really meant for casual browsing.

As far as the controls, in the games I've played everything seems to work fine. Nothing huge.
A nice added feature the system comes with is a pedometer. It has a built-in app that keeps track of how many steps you take in an hour. You can get a nice graph that shows your level of activity & your game play time in a nice chart.

The 3D effect isn't too bad once you've played with it for a bit. It does have a way of making the graphics on games that support it look very nice.
It doesn't feel as if they're jumping out at you, it actually feels like the 3DS is just a mere window into another time & space. If only it were as easy as reaching towards the screen and grasping the other side.

One of the main reasons I got the 3DS is because of it's ability to stream Netflix over the internet. As long as you have a good connection & a subscription to Netflix, this is awesome, and I highly recommend you add your 3DS to you Netflix capable devices.

What I'd like to see more of in terms of 3DS software would be a Calendar & Appointments application, Address Book application, and perhaps a Skype application if the system could handle it.

Now... With that said the system has one major flaw. Battery life.
If you use the system heavily during the day you'll probably get about 6 hours of battery life.
I unfortunately do not have the time or the ability to power test the system out properly.
A general rule of thumb I've found is that if I play it a lot during the day, I plug it in before I go to bed at night.

Also a personal gripe I have is that there are no nice leather holders for the unit.
I'd love to have one that I could clip to my belt so I could carry the system around with me all day.

Looking at the system now, I can understand why they wanted more up front, however $260 is not the price of a mobile system in my opinion.
If it had cell phone capabilities, maybe. However I wasn't looking for a awesome mobile phone, I wanted a awesome handheld video game system.
Hopefully with the next handheld system that succeeds the 3DS Nintendo will carefully keep that in mind.

Overall, if you have the money & you aren't worried about the current lagging battery life, I'd say the system has reached a price where it would be a decent buy.