First impressions of the Cyclo DS Evolution are good. It comes in a nice gift-box type tin and is packaged with a micro SD USB memory card reader, although I'm unsure of whether the supplied reader supports micro SDHC cards or not.
Build quality is OK. The card has a slight lump under the label but this doesn't make it too thick. it slots in just fine. The label is a bit ugly though and adds to the thickness a little. The micro SD slot on the CycloDS is not spring loaded which some of you may or may not be pleased to hear. Due to the slot not being spring loaded, it makes the micro SD card a little difficult to remove, but after a few attempts you'll soon get the hang of it. Personally I prefer a non-spring loaded slot as my R4 one has become very temperamental.
I took my micro SD card which contained a few clean ROMs (previously being used in my R4) and inserted it.
I booted up the card, which loads from the DS main menu, and NOT automatically (ala. R4) and after a few seconds of loading I was in the main menu. There's a game, media and settings icons. Tap game and you're instantly shown the contents of your micro SD card. I am impressed of the speed of the menus. There's a few seconds (2~4) of initial loading when you enter the card. But selecting and loading ROMs is much faster than any other cart I've used. Tap a ROM and it loads (including save file) within 1~3 seconds (3 seconds being a full 1024Mbit ROM).
The menus are completely touch controlled (though you can use the face buttons if you wish). You can even scroll the file/ROM lists by dragging the stylus. Which feels very natural and not clumsy. The touch detection is fine.
The menu seems to hide hidden files, and hides operating system files. (On first boot, the card creates a CycloDS directory with skin settings and some temporary .bin files but I'm unsure what these are. It maybe copies the boot loader to the micro SD card for faster reading - the first time I booted the CycloDS the initial loading took longer than it does now the directory has been made).
In the settings menu is an option to enable/disable enhanced mode. This allows you to use an impressive in game menu during gameplay. Which contains the following features:
- Adjust LCD Brightness
- Toggle Slowmotion
- Realtime save
- Realtime load
- Return to main menu
- Return to game
Unfortunately the two realtime options are currently disabled, and weren't even announced in the features list. Hopefully this will be added in future updates as it seems a very impressive feature if they get it working.
The card supports 10 languages (Eng, Fra, Ger, Ita, Esp, L.A. Esp, Por, Kor) and is completely skinnable (you can change graphics, text colours, and more).
You can also boot to slot2, and load Moonshell from the main menu.
So far all games work, DLDI autopatching works, download play works. Expect a review shortly.
Please feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer.
Anyone wondering whether or not, like their past iterations, the CycloDS Evo is a clone. No it doesn't appear to be a direct clone of any other slot 1 cart i know. BUT, it seems to be made in the same factory as the DSLink. The shells for both are almost identical, the labels have the same thickness and label type, the tin it comes in is almost identical to the DSLink tin, and the PCBs are very similar as you can see in the photos below.
Pics:
CycloDS on left, DSLink on right
