Devil May Cry said:
One of my friends saw me use my DSTT and was interested in one for himself. I know the whole fake issue was going around, but the one for $10 would be best for him. I just don't want it troubling my mind that I could fry his card. So, is there any confirmation on this? If not, is the Acekard 2 for $14 safe? Please note that like me, he won't store tons of stuff on his card and wants to avoid added menus and wasted time. So he prefers the DSTT, knowing that the Acekard 2 has a better menu and all. Thanks!
Showing up as USD $9.50 on DealExtreme now. I bought one last week in the new blister pack when they were listed as $10.70 each. Even with the very weak Aussie dollar versus the USD (and fluctuating PayPal exchange rates...), it's stupendously good value, especially when compared with local retailers.
Fakes versus real
I believe they are real.
http://www.ndstt.com/en/anti_fake.html (confusingly) seems to suggest in smaller photos that the newer ones with the more rounded MicroSD cut-away are real, and the blister pack is shown on their site. Unbelievable value, either way.
I have also ordered the AceKard 2, just to try it out.
History
I have only ever used a locally-bought pricey
CycloDS Evolution on my DS until getting one of these. Two or three times in my history with
CycloDS, I have experienced the card not reading the internal memory card (an eject and re-insert of the card fixed it) and once I had to download and re-load the firmware to make it lose its amnesia. Events which make the heart skip a beat, I can assure you.
Quality
So anyway, I thought I'd buy a spare card and I'm pleased to say that I'm impressed so far. Build quality seems good though I had a small issue with inserting my MicroSD card at first; didn't want to go in properly. Basically, I think the spring mechanism or the card-loading mechanism is not the best, and occasionally problematic in letting the card go in or slide out sometimes (but I can live with that; doesn't seem like a serious issue).
Surprises were:
1) the list of games isn't sorted alphabetically, it's sorted by the order you put them on the card, most-recent in the list being on the bottom. The cart also shows just the name of the file as you named them along with its icon, not the true name of the game and the company who made it. CycloDS shows the name of the game and company; in other words, a complete list.
2) scrolling with the stylus and scroll bar is not real-time (ie. when you let go of the stylus, only then does it update the display to show how far you've scrolled, which makes you prefer to scroll with the d-pad. CycloDS Evolution would allow you to scroll one whole page at a time quickly with the L and R shoulder buttons (but has no scroll bar).
3) speaking of L and R shoulder buttons, brightness on the TopToy DS is controlled with the handy L shoulder button while in your game list view.
4) the card shows how many items you have installed (CycloDS Evolution does not)
5) physically, the TTDS cart is flat, whereas my (white) CycloDS Evo has a slightly sticking-out chip with a sticker on it. TTDS flat surface much preferred in this area.
6) MicroSD card sticks out a bit when inserted in the cart, hardly an issue, but worth mentioning.
7) downloaded MoonShell off their site. It gives me some error message that disappears all-too-quickly. Moonshell loads but looked very different to the CycloDS-supplied Moonshell and some more dialogues were open in Moonshell that I can't quite recall probably indicating something-not-quite-right, I think. It did bring up a listing of all on my card in the top screen, though. Not quite sure what's up there, but if given enough time and inclination, I'll investigate. Nearly never used Moonshell anyway.
8) card bypasses Nintendo's screen completely (except the safety message), which is faster but I prefer having the 'official' screen show up in case I want to do something else. Not a huge issue.
9) interface in general is pleasing to the eye, with icons to show whether Cheats or Soft Reset, etc are individually enabled for each game (as well as having a global setting, from what I can tell). Handy for those that use it. Pressing on the
+ sign on a game then pressing the
Cheat tab did bring up Chinese characters tho, not sure what's up with that. I don't use cheats so no biggie to me.
Seems like a great card with excellent value.
Hope that was some useful info for anyone looking to get one.
I'd say grab one for sure.
