QUOTE said:
any reason why it's rare nowadays?
I don't know why it's rare, but only a few stores have ever carried it (and one of them psxboy.com is currently out of stock).
QUOTEthe 3in1 also has rumble (altho weak). is eWin that much better than the 3in1?
Well...that's a difficult question given that they are about the same price.
Here's the deal. Yes, the EZ 3in1 has the crappy rumble. But you can get a much better rumble (if you really want it -- rumble isn't all that great anyway) in a separate $4 eWin rumble pack. I believe that there are also some games that don't support rumble, but start the EZ 3in1 a-rumbling and won't stop until you turn off the NDS (those games have to be patched to avoid this annoying behavior). So I don't consider the rumble to be that much of a plus, but some people might.
The EZ 3in1 has two types of memory: slow NOR flash memory (non-volatile) and faster volatile memory (if you don't already know, volatile means that the memory is erased when it no longer has power, i.e. when the NDS is turned off). So, how slow is the NOR? Well, it can take up to 2 minutes to load a game to NOR compared with a few seconds to load the game to the faster volatile memory. So what is the purpose of the NOR memory? I'm not entirely sure, but the slower memory can store a game even when the NDS is turned off, and once stored you can play the game over and over similar to a real GBA cartridge (once loaded to the NOR, playing the game is relatively fast). With the volatile memory, you have to reload the game each time you want to play, but it only takes a few seconds so no big deal in my opinion. Only the fast volatile memory can be used as extra memory for the Opera browser or homebrew. The problem with the EZ 3in1 is that it has half as much of the fast volatile memory as NOR memory, which means that larger GBA games must be loaded into the NOR memory rather than the faster memory.
The eWin has twice the fast volatile memory as the EZ 3in1 and none of the slower non-volatile NOR memory. So you can load larger GBA games to the fast memory. It also means that the eWin 2in1 has twice the memory available for the browser and homebrew as the EZ 3in1. Because it has no NOR to worry about (all games load to the volatile memory), it's easier to use.
I personally prefer the simplicity of the eWin and don't see much point to the NOR memory, but some people do use the NOR memory. So, I guess the question is whether you prefer the extra NOR memory and rumble (if so, get the EZ 3in1) or twice the fast volatile memory (if so get the eWin).
Hope that helps!
-Bri