Buying an R4 at this point labels you as an utter retard.
If you have people telling you "BUY AN R4. ITZ DA BST!!!!!", tell them to screw off, because they don't know squat about whats going on in the current flashkart world.
The R4 is outdated with no SDHC card support (Meaning it won't take any micro sd cards over 2 gigs), no support team (The support team just quit, so no more updates. EVER), has about 10 games that doesn't work currently, and with the list growing at a fast rate. The idiot consumers STILL buy them, because they were the best flashkart available, OVER A YEAR AGO. They obviously don't know that there's better products that can be sold at a cheaper price out there.
No matter what someone says about how good a R4 is, it's outdated as hell, has no support, overpriced for what you can get, and the list of games not working is growing. Another thing to mention is that there are no real R4s in production anymore, because the team has stopped making the genuine versions. There are things like R4 SDHC, R4 III, R4 ADVANCED, N5, R4 EXTREME, U2, etc, which are ALL FAKES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO NEW SUPPORT (Except the N5. Then again, it could Kill your ds, so doesn't count).
What's my recommendation? Get an Acekard 2, EDGE, or a CycloDS. The Acekard 2 and EDGE can be had for under 20 bucks over at DealExtreme. The Cyclo, is something you can get off of RealHotStuff, and a few other places.