Nintendo Handheld Console - New Nintendo 2DS XL - White and Orange (Nintendo 3DS)

This is such a good console! I got it as a Christmas present for myself and as a up-grade from my Original 3DS XL which is starting to feel its age. I'm so impressed with it! The black and blue colour combo is stunning and compliments itself really well. The screens are really clear and really good quality and speed wise...its really fast! I have currently tested out Mario Kart 7, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Nintendogs and Cats and Ultra Moon, Pokemon Platinum and Pokemon X. All of these games load up nice and quick, especially Ultra Moon (it doesn't have that stupid 'please wait' message when you close the game down anymore!). The sound is also of really good quality, even on DS games. The buttons are really responsive and I love the fact that both the game cartridge and the micro SD card are protected at the bottom of the system and easy to get to (no worries about accidentally popping out my game or dreading taking the system apart to get to the SD card anymore - should I need to). I haven't got any games that require the C-stick so I haven't been able to test that out yet. I also really like the fact that you have to switch on the internet of the system within the system itself and not on a slider. The delivery was also nice and quick. All in all, I'm really happy with my new system and have already done the system transfer from my Original 3DS XL and have made my 2DS XL my main console. Almost forgot to mention, it's really comfortable to hold. I have small hands myself and my previous console would start to feel really heavy after a few hours of gaming. The 2DS XL fits really nicely into my small hands and definitely seems to be lighter than the Original 3DS XL.

I brought this for my Pokémon obsessed 7 year old for his upcoming birthday. I have been in two minds about buying one for some time as he has the original 2ds and I didn't think there would be much of a difference but I was seriously wrong! I received it today and have just taken it out of the box. This newer version completely blows its predecessor out of the water in every single way. The screens are much larger, it's got a lovely smooth and sleek design. The colour and quality of the screens are miles more superior. I was a bit worried that it would have a cheap and nasty feel to it and that the hinge would be wobbly but I don't feel either of those are an issue, feels solid and sturdy to me. The sound quality and volume is good and clear and fully adjustable (thankfully!) The Pikachu design itself is just lovely, so cute and the colours are very bright and attractive. The menus are clear and easy to navigate as well as being very nicely touch responsive instead of slow and buggy. Setting it up was super quick and easy as well. I cannot comment on game play as of yet but so far it ticks all of the boxes for me. I know my son is going to be over the moon with it. Thank you Amazon!

This little handheld has been a constant distraction since it turned up last week. Right out of the box it was easy to set up and get everything going. I have used my Girlfriends 2DS previously (of which this is far superior), but apart from that, this is my first Nintendo handheld since the original gameboy (which i still have). First the good parts, It has an incredibly intuitive button layout and general ergonomics are excellent. I have put in a fair few 4+ hour sessions on it with not hand or wrist ache (something I cannot say about the 2DS). The screen is bright and the touch screen very responsive. Overall build quality is good, if not stellar. There is some wobbling on the screen but not a disconcerting amount and the whole thing certainly does not feel like it is going to fall apart any time soon. Many people have commented on the resolution of the screen. Lets get this straight, it is no where near 720p or 1080p, however, for the purpose of the types and scale of games available on the system, it is acceptable with colours being particularly good, and this is from someone who games on a 1440p ips gaming monitor on PC, so if it passes my snob tests its should be ok for most ;). Battery life is very good, goes easily 4-5 hours with volume on half/quarter and brightness settings on 4. Now the not so good part. The moving of the speakers to the bottom is a mistake, as they can be covered up, thankfully i have tiny hands (i'll come back to this in a bit) so it is not as much of a problem for me, however, if you have massive spade hand you may find yourself having to re position them just to have sound. The stylus is very small, this is not too much of a problem for me due to the aforementioned midget digits, however, to others it may seem way too small and is very easy to lose. The black/turquoise version I got is a fingerprint magnet, within minutes it looked very smeary on both the case and around the controllers. However, in the grand scheme of things, considering the very reasonable price, the amount and quality of games available and the potential portability and battery life, this is a great purchase!

Update: A few months after I bought it, it stopped working. My daughter jiggled it a bit and poof! Pressing the power button did nothing. You’d hear a bop and see a flash, but that’s it. Took it apart several times to try and fix the most common causes - and boy, are there ever a lot of issues people keep reporting with this model...! Nothing. Got another one and that one was also unfixable. Repairs are very costly. Very unhappy with it. Complete waste of money. Can’t believe Nintendo would put a flawed product on the market like this. This was a 1st of June pressie for my 5yo daughter. She loves it. Got the blue version with these 2 accessories: - a carry case ORZLY® 2DS XL Case, Carry Case for New Nintendo 2DS XL - Protective Hard Shell Portable Travel Case Pouch for New 2DS XL Console with Slots for Games & Zip Pocket - BLUE on Black in matching colours; - a grip and silicone cover Hand Grips for NEW Nintendo 2DS XL with Silicone Case, AFUNTA Plastic Handle with Anti-slip Protective Cover for 2DS LL - Black . I was an avid Mario player, so I'm thrilled with the concept. This is the first DS we've had in the household. Great device, but you need to know that: - It comes blank, and you need to buy everything, unless you're satisfied with downloading the free demo versions. - Some of the games are actually quite hard, even if they're rated 3+. My daughter doesn't have the dexterity to make some of the jumps, even if she knows very well what she needs to do to level up. - It works with just about any DS game, even the newest ones, but it doesn't hurt to double-check. - You need to also buy loads of Amiibo characters if you want your kid to level up. - The stylus pen is the perfect chew toy. Within the first 5 minutes, it was chewed so badly that it won't stay in its chamber anymore. - You'll need to set privacy, payment, and security restrictions as soon as you get it, before your child gets their hands on it. Loads of games come with messaging and Mii sharing features, so do be careful if your child is little. Also set a password, so that when an app asks for permission to share info, they can't automatically do that themselves. I'm happy with the console, in principle, and I plan to get her younger brother one as soon as he reaches the minimum age to play these games. But I'm not very impressed with the sheer diversity of all these expensive extras and accessories. What happened to just giving kids a good game?

Edit - got another one for the kids! My favourite Nintendo handheld still! I like the 3DS games but I don't care for the 3D effect. If this sounds like you then this is the best console to get. I got the original 2DS as soon as it came out and I was very happy with it. Now the Big Brother has arrived and it's bigger and has all the extra controls (Bumper buttons and right hand hat stick). Feels great in the hand, build quality of the good high Nintendo standards. The XL series has a large screen without adding any resolution so be prepared to SEE the pixels, it has a nice large screen but it's not a modern mobile phone with ultra high-dpi. You see the same number of pixels... bigger. As long as you are prepared for this you will have no issues. This one has built-in Stereo speakers which actually makes is possible to play without headphones, the original 2DS has only a mono speaker which was a strange cost-cutting choice imho, ever since the original DS came out no hand-held had a mono speaker (the last one with mono speaker was GameBoy Advance SP). So all in all this is a better console than 2DS in every regard, so it's just a question of the price difference. I think it is well worth it, especially if you can find it on a sale. I have played with every single Nintendo hand-held since the original GameBoy. This one is easily my new favourite.

Went for this colourscheme because it was definitely the best in the bunch, but Tomodashi life is an abomination - I uninstalled it within several minutes. However, the console itself is AMAZING. I have wanted to update my original DS for some time, but never did so mainly because all the 3DS models are way too heavy, which hurts my hands. This gives me a similarly large console with a similar battery life. The battery life itself is extremely impressive. I played an emulated SNES game for nearly 6 hours yesterday with the WiFi on and birghtness on 4 out of 5, and was not even halfway down my battery. The ability to emulate games was the other big draw: I will be able to play games from SNES to gameboy advanced, ds and 3DS, all the titles I was never able to access, all on this one tiny machine. I am also happy with Nintendo handling privacy. You can use the device without making an account if you want to, and you are being prompted to opt out/turn off any services that use your data. Big thumbs up, this makes me happy. I could not be happier. Worth every penny.

This console is great if you're really into animal crossing and/or collect things, it looks great with the AC branding. When I tried to play the pre-installed copy of animal crossing (which is stored on a third party 4GB SD card), it crashed every time I tried to make a save file, I contacted customer support but then I saw there was an option to "repair" software from the E-shop itself, so I did that and it fixed the game. (it's worth noting that I didn't have a nintendo account prior to the purchase of this console, so if you have the same issue, make sure the account on the 2DS is the right one and you shouldn't have a problem with being eligable to re-download/repair the game, then again I guess you could move it to another SD card like I did, but I'm not sure if they're hard-linked to a nintendo account or not, just make sure you're informed I guess.) It's a great portable console for casual games, since it also plays original DS titles you have a HUGE backlog of games to check out.

OK so, the console looks nice on the outside at least. But it's made of such horrible plastic that's so thin and almost see through when an led light is on. And then the screen quality is pretty poor also...... Not that bright and the top and bottom screens are completely different in brightness and colour. (I've tried 2 different consoles). The one I received wouldn't play some original ds games either. It's a real shame because, it's a beautiful design and I'm not even a Pokémon fan. Overall, I think the new 3ds xl is the better buy and images look sharper with 3d turned on. Thumbs down!!