Hacking Received M3 Real today... a few impressions.

[xmortis]

Well.. I finally received my M3 Real today. This is worth a read. I'm wondering what other owners have experienced.

Shipped from Canada (Toronto) to the US (Massachusetts) in ~7 days. Very quick. My memory stick is being shipped from New York, only a few states distant. It still has NOT arrived. Rather silly I think. I have received packages faster from California.



Ok, the first thing I noticed when looking at the package. The M3 Real sticker on the cart was well.. stuck on in haste. Not square on at all. Looks rather unprofessional and 'thrown together'. Not a big deal. Its just a sticker.

I opened the M3 Real box. Damn these things are small.. but heck, so is the DS Lite.

Observations:

-The plastic is lightweight. This isn't high impact, tough plastic. Flimsy. Now I understand why some people complain of wear and tear on their M3 Real. If you don't handle this thing with some serious care, it will break in short order.

-The rumble cart looked ok. Still same lightweight plastic, but it was holding together. This leads to...

-The GBA cart. Something is wrong here. Whomever put this thing together is clueless. The case for the cart isn't even 'together'. What I mean is. It looks like the sucker either wasn't screwed down completely, or the case itself is warped and not fitting correctly. It is so loose that I'd hesitate to put this thing into my DS. I will try to screw it together better.. if that doesn't work. A few drops of superglue may do the trick. I don't want to wait for a replacement in the mail.

As for functionality. I will report back as soon as I get my 6gb SDHC card. Hopefully by today or tomorrow.

For the price paid ($60+US) I'd expect better quality plastic and assembly.

My card has 'm3-DSReal-CP2' written on the contacts. Maybe this is a revision 2 M3 Real?

-X

 

[matriculated]

$60? That seems pretty high. Was the shipping a lot?

 

[xmortis]

It was the M3 Real Perfect package.

Includes

M3DS Real Slot 1 microSD
GBA RAM Slot 2Pak
Rumble Slot 2Pak

It was actually $57'ish plus $10 air shipping from CA to US.

The M3DS Real itself alone can be had for much less.

-X

 

[soybean84]

It was the M3 Real Perfect package.

Includes

M3DS Real Slot 1 microSD
GBA RAM Slot 2Pak
Rumble Slot 2Pak

It was actually $57'ish plus $10 air shipping from CA to US.

The M3DS Real itself alone can be had for much less.

-X

Why didn't you buy it at realhotstuff? It's located in the Northeast, I think it's NJ, and only cost $64 (there's a 5% coupon here somewhere) shipped and received within 2-3 days. Hope you enjoy your m3 too.

 

[idono1301]

did you order from divineo?

 

[Digital1980]

I ordered from Divineo. They sell the M3 DS Real Perfect Bundle for like $52 or $53 dollars if I not mistaken. You can get USPS for $5 which could be in a decent amount of time or very very slow. I have bad experiences this method in the past. I impatiently chose FedEx which runs around 15 or 20 but it came in a day. Newegg is running a nice special on 4gb MircsSDHC card so it all balanced out in the end. Hope that helps somebody.

 

[xmortis]

I got it from Kickgaming near Toronto. I received it in 7 days from time of order. Faster than my memory which was shipped from NYC just two states away. Crazy slow shipping from that guy.

I poked around for the cheapest, but didn't spend a ton of time. Probably should have asked here first

Next time I will for sure.

Got my SDHC 6g card yesterday and set it all up. Played with the M3 Real for just a couple hours at most.

-NDS games have run GREAT so far no problems.
-The PDA function seems buggy, froze the DS up good.
-The M3 menus... I can see why some people complain. Its a bit finicky. But after a bit, I realizing 'poking' certain menu items twice with the stylus does the trick. Like a 'double click'.
-Played a DPG anime movie for a little bit. I didn't play with the movie player much, but looks like I'll have some fun with it.

-Sandisk 6gb SDHC class 4 works great. Boots fast and roms load fast.

I can live with the somewhat flimsy M3 construction. I am careful with my gear, so it should be fine. Just DONT even drop those cards though. Some of the wires/soldering in the Slot2 (rumble and gba card) look a tad.. well, weak. A good drop and you'll have bits and pieces rattling around.. broken. I suspect.

Now if only I could save my Phantom Hourglass save from my game cart and put it on the M3. Any tips?

I'll add more feedback as I play around more.

-X

 

[idono1301]

http://www.monroeworld.com/ds/hacking/backup/

that should help right? the part at the very bottom?

i know it should work for getting the save, but i dont know if its the right format for m3?

 

[golden]

M3 Reals don't seem as good as their simply counterpart but I am guessing you bought it for its good GBA compatibility and integrated expansion use? I say for those features it was worth it. Otherwise, there were way better and smarter choices.

 

[kreatosoupa]

I got my M3 Real from Kickgaming a week ago. It also says cp2 near the contacts. Although it does feel a bit cheaper, the sticker on the M3 was OK and both Paks were a very good fit. The menus need a bit of learning, after using the R4 for more than a year.

I don't think I'll have any problems though, since I always take good care of my stuff. Still, in the back of my mind I maybe should have kept my old R4 as a backup...

 

[xmortis]

"I am guessing you bought it for its good GBA compatibility and integrated expansion use"

Yep, thats right.

I'll also be poking around a bit with homebrew apps and NDS games of course. The M3 Real just seemed like it would be good all around. Though if I find it lacking in some function that I want to play with.. I'll buy something different for that purpose.

After a weekend of playing around.. I like this thing. Though I'm pretty much just starting to figure out its real capabilities.

-X

 

[xmortis]

http://www.monroeworld.com/ds/hacking/backup/

that should help right? the part at the very bottom?

i know it should work for getting the save, but i dont know if its the right format for m3?

I'll give it a look, but i'm not sure if it will work with the M3 Real.

The problem is the DS game can't be plugged into the DS while the M3 Real is in (Slot 1). Thus I cannot run any apps to back it up. Maybe this requires the use of a passkey slot 1 card, and a slot2 flash card? My terminology may not be entirely correct here, but I think you may know what I mean.

Its not a big deal really though.. just an inconvenience. Its just a save game after all.

-X

 

[littlesushi]

I have a question for you guys, since you all seem to know your stuff. What's the difference between this and a R4 card? Say I only wanted it for DS games, does this have any benefits over the R4 card? I got an R4 for my gf last Christmas and I've been playing her DS nonstop now, I haven't had a single problem with it, so now I want to get one for myself, is there something that I would be benefiting from getting an M3real (so many different versions) over a R4?

 

[amptor]

$60 US isn't much money these days unfortunately...but you could've just bought one with rumble for 32 bucks shipped.

the plastic is lightweight on the DS card so it can fit inside your DS obviously. The sticker wasn't aligned right? hmm havne't seen that before but definitely possible as these are pretty cheap.

the first one I bought had finger prints all over the internals, the second batch I bought didn't and everything was fine.