Nintendo DSi coming April 5th

Nintendo representatives recently showed up to trot out the US version of the DSi. It's basically identical to the Japanese version except it has an English menu system. Unlike the last time around, we could actually read and explore the menu and options. In particular, we got a better look at the main menu, camera, and sound options.

Nintendo went well out of its way to make the dual camera system interesting to use. Using either the internal or external camera, you can take pictures and manipulate them on the fly using ten different software based lenses with options like: distort, mirror, color swap, frame and more. We actually had a decent bit of fun fiddling with live shots by pulling noses out like Pinnochio or enlarging eyes like anime characters. A built-in slide show feature lets you display your shots, and you have the option of moving the shots off the DSi via the SD card. Picture files will save as the ubiquitous jpg format and should be accessible by all computers.

The DSi's mirror lens lets you take kaleidoscopic pictures. Hippy time!

Bland looking fruit is considerably more satisfying. When we played around with the color swap setting, we found it worked well on strong colors like bright green or red.

Satisfy those furry urges by using the mischief lens. You might remember that my counterpart James Yu took pictures of himself in a similar getup for our previous DSi feature. He liked the look so much he comes to work with whiskers on daily basis.

The sound recorder function lets you record up to 18 ten-second clips, and lets you play around with them using a stylus. Moving up and down the colored arrows lets you raise and lower the pitch. Traveling along the horizontal axis slows down and speeds up the playback. You can also loop the sound and A-B loop a specific part of it.

A separate section of the audio program lets you modify sounds with filters that make you sound like you've sucked the helium out of a balloon, turned into a parrot, or stood in front of a fan. Each one of the options has multiple underlying settings you can choose from. We found the options easy to navigate and entertaining to use.

The DSi also includes support for music playback, although you can only use AAC files(you'll have to convert MP3s). The top screen has a few audio visualizers you can choose from, and the bottom half gives you the option to tweak playback using a variety of filters. Like the sound clips, you can also speed up, slow down, and raise and lower the pitch. Music playback works with the console shut closed, but you'll need to have a headset plugged in, otherwise the DSi goes to sleep.

The DSi's new menu system considerably improves upon the original. By default you'll boot into the menu screen, from there you'll initially be able to choose between Settings, DS card, Camera, Music, DSiShop, Network, and PictoChat. More icons will appear once you pop in games or download applications from the DSiShop. You can also rearrange the layout by dragging around the icons with the stylus. For all those folks that forget to recharge their consoles - you'll also be able to change brightness settings to increase battery life without having to reset the console anymore.

The new DSi costs a bit more than the DS Lite, but it certainly comes with its fair share of new features. Nintendo also mentioned that we should be on the lookout for even more features as we get closer to the console's launch.