Without a doubt, if someone asked you what your favorite gaming handheld was the majority of answers you’d get would be the Nintendo DS. That answer would come with good reason; over 100 million units have been sold since its debut. It’s a safe bet that Nintendo can rest easy, knowing they’ve practically got the entire handheld market safely tucked away in their pocket. Then again, that isn’t the way they do things. Like the various updates to their products dating all the way back to the Game Boy, it’s all about giving the people what they want, or in some cases, what they wouldn't expect. Because of this, we've seen the birth of the Nintendo DSi, Nintendo's newest handheld darling, which combines the stylish aesthetics of the previous iteration with some impressive additions and improvements overall. The question must be asked, however - is it truly worth your hard-earned cash to upgrade?

At first glance, there isn’t much to differentiate the DSi from the Lite models. But upon closer inspection, you'll notice the DSi is actually a bit thinner, yet wider and longer (only by a few millimeters) compared to the DS Lite. The dimension changes are subtle but the hardware changes are more than obvious on the outside. Nintendo ups the ante with richly-textured buttons, two integrated cameras (yes, two), an SD slot that’s capable of reading 32GB SDHC cards, and a screen that’s actually enlarged by 0.25”. One aspect you will note as missing is the venerable Game Boy Advance cartridge bay, but this shouldn't bother you too much since all of the improvements are so impressive. If slippery gloss wasn’t your thing, the DSi does away with the slick, fingerprint magnet of the past surfaces and offers a matte finish that feels more utilitarian in texture but is now much easier to keep a grip on.

The changes inside are substantial as well, as a new 133MHz ARM9E CPU replaces the original 66MHz CPU while sporting 16MB of RAM. This translates into a minimal yet welcome boost in processing power that (hopefully) will result in better 3D games on the new hardware. This is all for the better as the entire interface of the DSi has received a complete overhaul that now displays a long row of icons (mostly empty) to navigate through, brightness adjustment settings (hold select and press volume button), and revised DS card swapping and soft reset features. Of course, these new additions come at the expense of the original DS Lite's supreme battery life, which seems to have lost roughly 6 hours off its maximum charge. This is disappointing, but still more than adequate considering how far a single charge can take you.

With plenty of empty spots to fill, this also means you’ll be using the wireless functionality a lot more since you can expect a wealth of content from the “DSi Shop” to fill that void. 256MB of internal memory is now available for your downloading pleasure, although chances are you'll need to pick up an external SD card if you plan on amassing a larger digital library on the go. Also like its bigger cousin the Wii, you can now spend your precious Nintendo Points on the go and receive purchase rewards if you’re a Club Nintendo member. That's at least one reason they omitted that coveted GBA slot.

Of course many will want to use the camera features and for that the DSi doesn’t disappoint. You can either take snapshots of yourself or other things thanks to dual cameras, and they can later be altered or manipulated to your liking - as tastefully or as immature as you want. Despite being able to effectively transfer your photo outside of the DSi itself (with an SD card) the 0.3 megapixel resolution doesn’t allow for much imagination elsewhere unless you avoid dark places and are good at taking pictures. It’s certainly far from ideal if you’re expecting high-quality, but that clearly wasn’t the intended purpose of the DSi.

The DSi's sound features are definitely a high point for me in regard to sheer enjoyment, because for some reason recording either yourself or your friends and editing to your liking is quite entertaining. It also serves as a competent music player with modest sound quality to boot, just as long as you have an SD card and a song collection of the predominately iPod-inclusive AAC audio format, because for some reason it doesn’t support the widespread MP3 format.

So after spending a week with the Nintendo DSi, I have to say that it’s the same dog with a whole new bag of tricks. There is a lot to like, despite the lack of backwards compatibility via the GBA slot and limited camera functionally. A promising DSi shop and SD expansion do make up for some the glaring faults, but the question remains if the DSi should replace your current DS simply because of additional tweaks. Right now it probably isn’t necessary to trade in just yet, unless you can justify the means to do so. Regardless, the DSi is a mostly well-done evolution in an already excellent long line of handhelds, and its newer features will most likely be more than enough to convince potential - and possibly current - users to choose one over previous models.