R4 revolution (R4 Cartridge Revolution for DS)

Member Name: clairelw101

Product:	R4 Cartridge Revolution for DS
Date:	04/11/09 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use

Disadvantages: Have to buy a Micro SD card as well, infrequent firmware updates

The R4 card is a design innovation for the Nintendo DS, though not an offical Nintendo product.

For those of you who don't know what an R4 card is, its a cartridge like the normal DS games cartridge that holds a Micro SD card and can be slotted in to the normal games cartridge space on the Nintendo DS. According to the information that comes with this you can out pictures, video, music etc on these cards and then be able to view them on your DS however, most people will use these for putting games on.

The original R4 cards will only take up to a 4gb Micro SD card the newer generation of R4 cards (R4 SDHC) will take up to a 16gb Micro SD card however, even for the newer cards if your putting games on a 4gb will probably be more than enough for you.

The R4 packs come with the cartridge, cartridge holder, CD, instructions and Micro SD card reader, unless you buy a pack with a Micro SD card you will need to buy this seperatly and without this it won't work.

The R4 cards are extemely easy to use and putting the firmware on to the Micro SD card is really easy. As for putting stuff on to the card its a simple drag and drop exercise. Once you have put something on the card all you do is put it in the DS like a normal game, turn on the DS and then use the up down keys to select which game or picture etc you want to look at or play.

As I said before most people will use these cards to put games on and unlike other games systems the DS games are not large file sizes hence, why I think a 4gb card is more than enough otherwise you will end up with so many games on it you won't play them all. The largest game file I have found for the DS is 132mb!! This is probably down to the fact that the graphics etc are not that advanced on the DS compared to the PSP.

There is an issue with the R4 cards if you are planning on using them for games and that is that the makers don't do updates for the firmware very often and Nintendo have realised that people are saving themselves money by getting copies of their games and using these cards so they keep updating the security files in their games which conflict with the older software on the R4 cards. So unless you feel confident searching for and creating your own firmware you may have to wait to play some of the more up to date games.

The R4 cards vary in price depending on whether you buy one with a Micro SD card or not and where you get it from so you are best doing your research first as you can save yourself lots of money this way.

Overall these are a great addition to the DS but there are also other cards out there that do similar jobs to the R4 card but with more updates for the firmware so that your not left waiting to play newer games. However, these are more user friendly so I would recommend doing your research first and finding out exactly what you want to do with it and what you feel confident doing yourself.

Summary: Easy to use but do your research for prices etc.