tama mog, If you know more on the white plastic vs. black plastic issue, I would love to know, especially because I remember someone saying that they learned in engineering or something that black plastic is inherently much stronger than white plastic.
Actually, it sounds like total bs to me...the whole white vs black plastic issue. In my opinion it's the actual manufacturing. There's a reason why all those cracked ds lites all registered in the United States (ok, 99% of them, I think 1 guy said he had a navy blue one). If you notice the Japanese DS Lites cost more as well....hmmmm, why would people ever buy one these then if they can get the same thing in the US for about $20 cheaper (direct yen conversation difference). Sure it can be due to the differences in Japan vs US market but from what I've seen and what I personally experienced (I've bought 5 Japanese DS Lites and I have never seen any problems with any of them thus far....no cracking, no yellowing, no weird d-pad, no shifty touchscreen....etc etc etc). This tells me there is some manufacturing process that is inherently different and causing these quality issues. Now this is all conjecture of course, but then so's every other theory of why certain DS's crack and certain ones don't. I just go by statistics and by what I know about the Japanese market, it's heavily catered toward consumers and that's why all the products are so pretty and nice and so pleasing to have (If you've been to Japan, you would know exactly what I'm speaking of). If DS lites cracking was a big issue in Japan (which it isn't, Japanese people has never even heard of this issue much less experienced it....and these people beat on these toys all day in the train, car, school whatever) , Nintendo would take a huge hit because it would lose a big chunk of their customers. Japanese people expect quality even from little UFO Gacha-gacha's that you pay $1 for (100 yen). You trying to say black vs white plastic of the same material makes a difference in strength is a weak argument to justify exchanging you a black ds.....that just doesn't fly. In fact, I don't see Nintendo having any obligations to replace it with a black one @ all....hell if they replace it with a new white one that's already going above and beyond in service....don't push your luck. I work with plastics all the time and look @ technical data consistently....I do not ever recalling in any instance where the same type of plastic displays different strength yields due to color. That's just ridiculous.