I bought mine from realhotstuff about 2 weeks ago, and there is no spring. The box I received was new and in perfect condition. It seems the design of this new R4 is also much better than the old one. The plastic used is more solid, and it fits perfectly well into the slot one, just like an original DS game. This new R4 is IMO the perfect solution for the NDS, I played hours and hours with it, and all the games I've tried worked. Frankly, I fail to see why some people would pay more for a CycloDS or something like that. Maybe the CycloDS have some better skins, but as far as the NDS games are concerned, the R4 just perfectly does its job.
Turtleman wrote: "hm..that's strange how they took the spring out...Glad I got mine february last year, I think the spring is a pretty useful feature."
It does not surprise me. Considering there are so many kids out there who don't really pay attention to their R4DS, and who press on the SD card like a bunch of savages to remove it, the spring would eventually broke at some point. Like for everything that is small and made of tiny electronic and mechanical parts, you have to be gentle and careful, no matter how solid the product is. That's why the R4 ream removed the spring, this way people can't break it anymore.
