All the main sites I visited such as BBC.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, and IGN.com were displayed properly as they did on my Windows XP machine running Firefox although anything that makes use of plugins such as Flash are left blank. Whenever you browse sites that make use of a lot of images or heavy scripts, you’ll find the browser eventually runs of memory and a triangular exclamation mark appears on the top-right of the screen. You are then given the option to either clear out the memory or tap ‘OK’ and browse the site as it is. The only times I’ve experienced this however is on the Gamespot.com homepage. Most of the time clearing the memory just crashes the browser, forcing you to reset your DS although sometimes it does work, allowing you continue browsing. Other sites seem to load fine including many of Nintendo’s own game sites and various blog sites.


Uh-oh! Out of memory at Gamespot.com.
To browse sites, you tap on the URL button and enter the address of the site you want to visit. Unlike the normal browser however, a history of sites that you browse is only kept for the current session. Once you turn off the DS, your history is automatically cleared which means next time you want to visit a site, you have to type the whole address in again. However, sites that you bookmark are saved to the DS card and there are also shortcuts to help you type out addresses quickly such as the common “.com” or “.net”. Navigating links is also simple as you can either make use of the D-Pad to select links or, just tap them with your stylus. To scroll through pages, you can use the stylus to drag them around or just drag the rectangle towards the edge of the screen. This scrolling method works well for single pages but, frames don’t seem to fair as well, forcing you to find the tiny scroll buttons to view them.


Domain shortcuts are available to help you enter URLs faster.
As you know, all browsers have a little animated icon as a webpage loads so the Nintendo Browser is no different. A dual screen icon cycles in the corner of the top screen as a page loads and next to this is a number that lets you know how many images are being loaded from the page. On the same bar is the Wi-Fi signal strength indicator and also the URL bar which scrolls if an address is too long to fit in the limited space.


Sites like Amazon.co.uk load fairly quickly and displays correctly.
Once you find an area where you want to enter text in during 2 screen mode, all you have to do is tap on the button that switches the screens around and then after you tap the text box, you can start entering text. Text can be entered via two methods; handwriting or a touch screen QWERTY keyboard. In this import Japanese copy of the browser, there is also a separate keyboard for entering Kana too although I don’t know if this will be omitted from the English version. Besides English characters and Kana, the handwriting feature also recognises simple Kanji well too where you write characters in a box split into quarters. The software doesn’t fair too well with the more complex Kanji however such as the 16 stroke “ki” character which means “machine” or “opportunity” although you can try to correct mistakes by tapping the folded page at the bottom corner.


Using handwriting mode. You can also use the English/Kana keyboard too.
Site loading times vary depending on the content with simple sites such as the Google search engine loading up in a matter of seconds. Bigger, more image intensive sites such as Gamespot.com or Ign.com on the other hand take something along the line of 3 minutes or so before you can do anything with the browser. The software sometimes slows down badly on such sites while they’re loading making the browser unresponsive. Once the sites are fully loaded into the expansion cartridge however, you can freely browse around the page with little slowdown. Images are only displayed whenever you are viewing that certain part of the page. For example, if you’re looking a big website logo, the Nintendo Browser will have it loaded it on screen. Once you scroll away from it however and it’s off the screen, the next time you scroll back up to it you’ll have to wait for the browser to reload it from memory. It’s not too much of a problem though because they load fairly quickly.