Nintendo DSi

See also: First looks – watch our video review of the Nintendo DSi

The DS handheld games console was a bit of a surprise hit. No-one expected giant games maker Nintendo's device to fail but the scale of its success, and that of its successor the DS Lite, was impressive.

The key to that success was its broad appeal to all kinds of gamers of all ages. Younger players picked up on the cutesy games featuring Mario and Zelda, while older computer users, some of whom may not even have considered games before, were induced by titles such as Brain Training.

The DSi updates the line with a few clever features and a couple of retrograde steps. It's roughly the same size as the DS Lite (in fact it's a touch bigger) but the upside is that both of the screens inside are larger – up from 3in to 3.25in. Again there's a stylus included for using the touchscreen, or players can use their fingers.

The other big change is that there are two cameras, one on the inside and one outside, which allow the user to take and edit pictures. The slot on the DS and DS Lite for inserting old Gameboy Advance games has been removed, the upshot being that the DS version of Guitar Hero won't work on the DSi), but there is a new slot on the side for an SD memory card. The card (not supplied) can be used to store pictures and music to play on the built-in player. Music has to be in the iTunes AAC format, not the more popular MP3, which is an annoyance.

Memory cards are also used to store downloaded games, which is the DSi's other big advance. There's now a Nintendo online store, from which players can pick up new titles, add-ons and applications, as is possible with other games consoles. Wireless access on the DS was one of its big failures, as it was only able to work with old and insecure networks protected with Wep security.

The DSi can work with newer and more secure WPA, but it was enormously complicated to set up – there are several wireless profiles, and WPA only works with some of them.

The speakers are a little bigger now, but the volume dial has been removed in favour of buttons, which are not as immediate should you need to quickly change the sound level.

How useful the shop is will depend on the games it contains, none of which are available at the time of writing. A free web browser application is promised, though, for one.

There's enough here to make the upgrade worthwhile for owners of the original DS, but those who already have a DS Lite will be best off sticking with that – unless connecting to a WPA network is a big deal.

For newcomers, the DSi is a great games console, as it can still play most of the existing catalogue of games. In all, we'd go for it over the DS Lite, despite the price difference, because of the shop and the wireless network upgrade.

See also: First looks - watch our video review of the Nintendo DSi