M3 Lite Professional Review

[TheSpade]

M3 Lite Professional Review

Official GBATemp Review

​

Thanks once again to G6/M3 Team for providing a sample for this mini-review. If NDS functionality is the sole factor in choosing a flash card, then you cannot go wrong with M3 Lite Professional. It continues to be one of the top flash cards. Read here for the complete review.

 

[Hanafuda]

It's like a SCLite Rumble, only without the Rumble.

thx for your time writing the review, Spade.

 

[Sinkhead]

Why is this review not on the sidebar?

 

[Harsky]

Nice but the fact that it plays a fewer GBA than the other M3 put me off a bit. On an off topic notice, I noticed there's still no review for the M3 Perfect MiniSD. Do I assume it's like all the other M3 review.... but in a cart the size of a GBA?

 

[TheSpade]

Why is this review not on the sidebar?

Shaun or Costello handle that end. They'll get around to it.

Nice but the fact that it plays a fewer GBA than the other M3 put me off a bit. On an off topic notice, I noticed there's still no review for the M3 Perfect MiniSD. Do I assume it's like all the other M3 review.... but in a cart the size of a GBA?

No one ever volunteered to do one. I used to own it, and there was really no difference between the SD that is reviewed here and the Mini-SD.

 

[Shinji]

Nice but the fact that it plays a fewer GBA than the other M3 put me off a bit. On an off topic notice, I noticed there's still no review for the M3 Perfect MiniSD. Do I assume it's like all the other M3 review.... but in a cart the size of a GBA?

That IS how they cut cost to make this one a cheaper alternative for those interested like my friend is. Quality above all else

As far as the MiniSD version, I believe thats what they said when it came out.

 

[Teun]

Thanks for the review. I just ordered it with Gameyeeeah, since it has this:

http://www.gameyeeeah.com/uploadfiles/ndsm3proshell.gif
(I own a regural DS & a DSLite).

Is Gameyeeeah trustable?

 

[Harsky]

Why is this review not on the sidebar?

Shaun or Costello handle that end. They'll get around to it.

Nice but the fact that it plays a fewer GBA than the other M3 put me off a bit. On an off topic notice, I noticed there's still no review for the M3 Perfect MiniSD. Do I assume it's like all the other M3 review.... but in a cart the size of a GBA?

No one ever volunteered to do one. I used to own it, and there was really no difference between the SD that is reviewed here and the Mini-SD.

Nice.... oh and I was also wondering, how easy can the mini SD fall out or is it like the DS cart where you push it in and it ejects it out?

 

[Costello]

Gameyeeeah are trustable, otherwise we wouldn't have them in our affiliates

Thanks for the review TheSpade!

 

[mickael28]

Did you try some homebrew application? I read that this one is just supporting GBA games < 4MB RAM and I have seen that a lot of homebrews are higher than that value... Is it the same compatibility than the rest of m3 products with internal RAM?

 

[yee]

Very good review, thanks for writing it for the community

 

[kobewan]

Just wanted to point out that formatting with FAT16, 64k clusters doesn't completely ruin GBA functionality. You can still load GBA games with START, but they will take longer to load up. I didn't test this very extensively, but all the games that I tried seemed to work just as well as normal. So if you use GBA less than DS games, I would recommend formatting it that way.

Good review though, nice to know that the product functions exactly as expected.

 

[Teun]

Wait, I'm confused now..

Does the package include the thingy which makes it possible to play with on Regular DS's?
because the review says this:

Inside the box, you'll find the following:
M3 Lite Professional Black casing
M3 Lite Professional Ice Blue casing
M3 Lite Professional White casing
Installation mini-CD

but the image does show it..?

 

[TheSpade]

Wait, I'm confused now..

Does the package include the thingy which makes it possible to play with on Regular DS's?
because the review says this:

Inside the box, you'll find the following:
M3 Lite Professional Black casing
M3 Lite Professional Ice Blue casing
M3 Lite Professional White casing
Installation mini-CD
but the image does show it..?

From various Lite Pro owners I've spoken with, some have received all 6 casings from various shops, while others haven't. If you intend on ordering it, then I recommend you e-mail the shop of choice to see what's included.

 

[CatScam]

Nice review Spade, but with the Pro still having the slow clunky menus,
a splash screen, unreliable game saving method, side loading & now little
to no GBA support. Why would anyone buy this over a SC, or EZ? It can’t
be because the M3 team is better at updates because they all have about the
same DS compatibility. Or the M3 is better built then the others, because the
M3 is notorious for faulty SD card slots. They just removed the only thing
that made anyone want a M3 over other cards.

 

[TheSpade]

Nice review Spade, but with the Pro still having the slow clunky menus,
a splash screen, unreliable game saving method, side loading & now little
to no GBA support. Why would anyone buy this over a SC, or EZ? It can’t
be because the M3 team is better at updates because they all have about the
same DS compatibility. Or the M3 is better built then the others, because the
M3 is notorious for faulty SD card slots. They just removed the only thing
that made anyone want a M3 over other cards.

Let's address this in parts:

1. Slow clunky menus
Slow how? I'm using the latest firmware and custom skins and I'm not seeing anything slow. Sure, you have to choose the save file, and unless you actually placed an alternate one on the card, it is moot. Still, it's just one extra button press. If that kills you, then you'll probably want to go with the G6.

2. Splash screen
I've mentioned this many times before. I still have no idea why 2 seconds seemingly kills people. A television commercial is 30-45 seconds. Waiting for coffee to brew can take up to 10 minutes. I can find many more worthwhile things in life that are irritating to wait through. A 2 second legal statement to cover their collective asses isn't one of them.

3. Unreliable Game Saving Method
Huh? I have never lost a single save game ever. Well, there was the one time I formatted my memory before realizing I forgot to backup the save game to my PC. The M3 had nothing to do with it. None have ever corrupted or disappeared on 3 different M3 models as well as the G6 Lite. Of those who claimed to have experienced it, they've left out a lot of details of what exactly happened or admittedly used an operating system other than Windows to use Game Manager with. Yes, I do agree that multi-OS compatibility should be something to aim for in the future, but that's up to G6/M3 Team.

4. Side Loading
I addressed this within the review, but again, it's not the end of the world. The DS Lite can take it. By the way, bottom loading isn't everything it's cracked up to be. I accidentally ejected the memory out of my old M3 Mini-SD more than a dozen times during play sessions. Mind you, it was not a defect of any kind or did no harm outside of forcing me to restart the game and losing my progress.

5. M3 is notorious for faulty SD card slots
That's a gross overstatement. I too have read seldomly concerning some people's claims of their flash memory not being recognized by their various M3 models. Once again, this too has been addressed. ALL flash cards have experienced this, including Supercard and EZ-Flash IV. Sure, there are some cases where the M3 has been defective, and there were a few people who chose to complain about it here in a forum that has nothing to do with contacting the shop to setup a replacement or refund. However, the usual culpret is not the devices themselves, but rather an inexperienced user, bad or incompatible flash memory, bad format, using a non-Windows or Windows 98 OS, etc.

6. Why would anyone buy this over a SC, or EZ?
Supercard is the lower cost card with stronger homebrew support among the Slot-2 SD flash cards, a bland games menu, most complex ROM write settings (versus the others, hell yes) and poor GBA support. While M3 Lite Professional is a GBA-less Slot-2 card, at least they pull no punches informing consumers, and the Perfect models are the alternative for those who want GBA and DS. Supercard is a Slot-2 card that cannot handle GBA, and it originally began as a GBA flash card. To me, that's just wrong. If you want a bare bones NDS flash card, then Supercard isn't a bad choice. However, if you want superior homebrew, you really should look at the Supercard or M3 CF models or the DS-Xtreme instead. Doesn't really leave you much to see preferable versus the competition, unless you're a really cheap bastard.

EZ-Flash IV gives both DS and GBA playback a pleasant experience, but the downside is that they have some issues with addressing their English-speaking fans. M3 and Supercard have English pages. Why not EZ-Flash? You have to go to an unofficial forum to grab the latest files. On the hardware side, they redesigned the casings for IV Lite to no longer need filing down (which was completely inexcusable) months after it was quite public and scorned. Not many who shelled out cash were so forgivable and moved on to the competition. Furthermore, users had to look hard for a non-splash screen Superkey and Passcard 3, until they finally got EZPass3 out on the market. Instead of fixing this issue, which was at the fault of the EZ Team, not ROMMAN or G6/M3 Team, they made their users require the rare nopass or flashme or a passme2. They procrastinated far too long for my consideration, though yes, now that they got their ducks in a row, they're not a bad offering. I do feel for those who felt burned by them.

Regardless, it all comes down to choice. I wasn't completely kind to M3. The tight casing, the question of future homebrew support due to a reluctance to release the source code, and higher cost for the Perfect models are all negative marks. However, after reading many, many reviews and using flash cards first hand, I still gladly choose M3 (and G6) over the competition in the Slot-2 arena. Note that I said "Slot-2". The Slot-1 arena is just getting warmed up. DS-Xtreme, Ninjapass, Acekard and the upcoming M3 DS and G6 DS will soon put all these Slot-2 cards out to pasture sometime in 2007. I know that the preceding statement is simply a hypothesis, but look how far we've come in DS playback. Allow me to repeat myself from a past post. It doesn't matter to me which flash card you buy or where you buy it from. However, it should damn well matter to you.

 

[cenotaph]

3. Unreliable Game Saving Method

Yeah, I've always wondered why this comes up every time the M3's discussed. I've played at least a hundred different games over the last few months and I've yet to have a problem. In fact, I really like the way saves are handled - I've never had to fuzz with them.

 

[azndragonguy115]

supercard isnt as bad at gba as most people says

 

[CatScam]

OK spade now I see were your coming from, you’re just an M3 fan-boy.
No matter what the problem is it’s no big deal. Normally I couldn’t care
less, but your writing a review that may make ppl spend their money on
a product that your just twisting to sound better then it is. Many people
have had the problems mentioned above, but you blame the user & not
the product. And there’s always someone saying I never had that problem.
So buy that theory every GBA game I’ve tried on a SC has worked, that
must mean the SC is 100% GBA compatible? I’ve got burned buy one sided
reviews here before, so all I’m trying to do is make someone think twice
before dumping there hard earned cash on this card. When there are clearly
better choices out there for the price.

 

[SpaceJump]

When there are clearly better choices out there for the price.

Tell me, what is it your SC can do clearly better than M3?

Also Spade, I wouldn't say M3 is weaker for homebrew than SC. Just take a look at the latest version of ScummVM DS: Where it directly saves to all M3 devices, SC users (except SC CF) must use the inconvinient SRAM-method (Source).