The DS-X team has just released a new software and hardware update for their DS-Xtreme flashcart product. This flashcart is the most powerful cart on the market, boosting capabilities greater than that of the NDS itself, but a a higher price-point than its competitors. This new update v1.10 (software) comes with several wanted changes, one of the most noticeable the second you boot up is the new skin. I was unable to test/use this update myself due to a few technical problems on my part. However the public response to this update seems to be generally good, especially in the area of the new skin and something called "skinapps".

Skinapps are programs and games that utilize the built-in skinning engine of the DS-Xtreme to create DS-Xtreme-specific applications and games. Sudoku, Pwng and a Calculator application have all been bundled with this latest update for you to try out immediately. The various other changes in this update include -

• Multiple skin selection/support (Holding B during startup forces system backup skin to be loaded)
• Entirely new skin!
• Scroll-bar widget
• New loading and top screen
• Cosmetic change to App loading transition
• Previous (1.0.x) skin is now available as "OS10"
• "Preset" directories searching option
• "SkinApps" Skin engine based applications support
• Sudoku, Pwng, and Calculator examples
• Instant boot MBR handling bug fixed
• Instant boot LED handling bug fixed
• Better eeprom emulation mode detection
• Fixed an issue with graphics engine display quality (line skipping)
• Dpad release events are now properly placed into event queue

Note: If you experience an error that says "Update Error -1" - Read this and be sure to follow all instructions listed here.

Download: [DS-Xtreme Updater for 1.10 (PC only) + Public Partition Files]

Buy: [DS-Xtreme (DS-X) 4Gb (512MB) All-In-One Flash Storage Solution]

The R4 team was generous enough to send me their newest (and only flashcart under this name), the R4 DS which seemed to come out of nowhere. However, this little device delivers everything a homebrew fan would wish for (or a pirate for that matter..). The R4 delivers on all major bases for the DS, homebrew and multimedia support. With competitors being priced much higher and offering some different features (highest at 125$ for dancing LED's and an insane chipset), the R4 DS still comes out on top, or close to top in my opinion. This is one flashcart that I can strongly recommend due to its remarkably low price-point. Read the review after the jump!

Click on the "Full Article" link below to read the full review.

Visit: [Official Website]
Buy: [R4 DS Slot-1 Solution (MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [R4DS w/ 1GB MicroSD Slot-1 Combo by R4 for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [R4DS w/ 2GB MicroSD Slot-1 Combo by R4 for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Discuss: [Discussion Thread]

DS-X announced the availability of public beta release of the fix for the Qkin bug affecting many DS-Xtreme users. According to the company, the so-called Qkin bug recently hit its latest batch of DS-Xtreme DS media enhancers shipped during the holidays. The bug affects affects a significant number of the latest batch devices.

"As this is a hardware logic update, it will take slightly longer to apply then a normal firmware update, and the progress bar will proceed more then once," says the maker of DS-Xtreme.

Before applying the update, affected users should format their DS-Xtreme. It is recommended to copy the 1.0.2 skin folder back (which is included in the download folder) onto the device.

It is important that you leave your USB cable connected until a message box appears that the update has completed. The LEDs will turn off during the update, and will turn back on when the update is complete. After the update, the updater will still report the firmware version as 1.0.2. This, according to DS-X, is normal.

With the beta release, the firmware version remains 1.0.2. However, the hardware version is now 1.0.1. The next release of the updater tool will be able to show the firmware and hardware versions separately.

Download: [DS-Xtreme Updater Beta]

Buy: [DS-Xtreme (DS-X) 4Gb (512MB) All-In-One Flash Storage Solution]

A new product has been emerging out this month as a viable competitor to the M3, Supercard and DS-X flashcart teams. M3 has their new slot-1 device entitled the "M3 DS Simply", Supercard following suit with their Supercard DS and the DS-X team with their highly popular DS-Xtreme. All of these seem to be great flashcart solutions from very respected teams, so how will the R4 fair against them? That's the ultimate question, something of which we can only decide once a review is out. The R4DS will use MicroSD memory cards as the memory medium and will be competitively priced at 45.99$ (USD) with the following features -

• Original DS cart sized device;
• Drag‘N drop files NO software required;
• Play in SLOT-1 without Passcard or Flashme;
• Supports TF(MicroSD) capacity upto 4GB(32Gbit);
• Supports DS sleep mode;
• Supports FAT16/32 File System;
• Supports Screen touch sensitive;
• Compatible clean Rom, homebrew & moonshell; - Compatible all version of DS;
• Intuitively upgradeable custom operating system.

Buy: [R4 DS Slot-1 Solution (MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [R4DS w/ 1GB MicroSD Slot-1 Combo by R4 for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [R4DS w/ 2GB MicroSD Slot-1 Combo by R4 for Nintendo DS (Lite)]

Just yesterday we laid eyes upon the first images and information on the M3 DS Simply, and now, only a day later, pre-orders are being accepted by Divineo (China). Even if you are not a resident of China, you are able to purchase this product from Divineo.cn and will get the same great price that the M3 team has placed for this new product. The most shocking bit of news that comes with this is the pre-order price! At under 50$, you will be able to purchase this great cart.

Previous cartridges (slot-2) from the M3 and G6 team have been priced in the range of 80$, but with this new device it seems that you will only have to pay about half of that for the same great service. You may ask yourself, why is this so low compared to their previous cartridges? Simple, the M3 DS Simply does not support GBA files like some of their expensive slot-2 devices. No slot-1 device at this point in time supports GBA mode. The M3 DS Simply will hopefully turn out to be another great product from the M3 team, possibly beating off the #1 competitor in the scene, the DS-Xtreme.

Buy: [M3 DS Simply Slot 1 (MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [M3 DS Simply Slot 1 (1GB MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [M3 DS Simply Slot 1 (2GB MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]

The M3 team previously announced that they were busy working on a slot-1 solution several months ago, and in the past week we have received more information about the product, possible price and a nice picture of the cart! The DS-Xtreme took the DS scene by storm as it provided a reliable, all-in-one product for the DS. However, the M3 team was not far behind as they too were working on a new device. This one looks to be the most promising of their devices, and might just be the greatest slot-1 device to date.

The most shocking news that accompanies the announcement is the previous announcement of a price of $ 25.00! Previous devices (including their passcard 3) were above $ 30.00. This seems a little too good to be true, so please take this with a grain of salt if you will. However, no matter what the price - you are getting a lot for your money.

• The same size as an original DS cart
• Build in PassMe (No Need for boot card or anything else to boot )
• Using Micro SD card (Trans Flash) as external storage. Cheap & variety (?)
  
• Boot clean dump images
• Super simple to use , drag and files over to the micro SD card .
• No drivers required
• Standard FAT system support
• Support different speed of micro SD card even the low speed SD card .Run
• Upgradable Firmware ( OS / Bios / Kernel )
• Touch Screen control & robust skinning support
• No need battery , back up the save file into the micro SD card directly
• Auto detect the save type & automatic generate saver file
• Homebrew support , IO lib will release on launch
• Direct watch movie , listen MP3 & read TXT on the DS via the use of
• Support WiFi , DS rumble pack & DS browser

Buy: [M3 DS Simply Slot 1 (MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [M3 DS Simply Slot 1 (1GB MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]
Buy: [M3 DS Simply Slot 1 (2GB MicroSD) for Nintendo DS (Lite)]

The DS-Xtreme Flashcart lives on after production delays that many customers have been experiencing, and it's only going to get better from here on out! This most recent news from the team details the production delays experienced, and clarifies on an old secret of theirs, the "fully upgradeable" feature. The good news is that there is no bad news today, so we can all rest stress-free for the upcoming holidays if you are a owner or a future owner of the DS-Xtreme. The production issues came after the team did a few quick changes to quality control after a few faulty units and a few issues with customs and an sweatshop assembly plant in China. The production of the DS-Xtreme cartridge is back on "track", so those awaiting your shipment to arrive may shortly get it!

Now, the "big" news of the day comes in the form of some technological revelation about the product. The DS-Xtreme is commented and credited for being "fully upgradeable". Now, you may say to yourself that other flashcarts can easily update themselves as well, but this is no simple OS update that I am referring to. As many of you know, the DS is a relatively "weak" system when compared to other systems on the market right now. However, when coupled with the DS-Xtreme, this weakness is gone, and now the DS can be seen as a strong competitor, ready to throw punches at almost anything with an instant knock-out win!

According to the news, the DS-Xtreme "has enough "room" to fit a complete ARM9 core and can be clocked at over 300mhz!" Although, this would not be overclocked to such an extreme due to the fact that there won't be any "room" left over for anything else. Now, to put this into reference - the DS has two CPU's which clock in at 67mhz and 33mhz each! The DS-Xtreme is more powerful than your DS and has the ability to change into something entirely different than it is now. Need it to boost up the speed on an emulator - grab a DS-Xtreme, chat with the team and settle something out where you, the developer, can use part of their great technology and speed. The DS can be powerful, you just need something to help it get its way to that status - the DS-Xtreme will do that! Here's a quote that will sum most of it up for you -

Yes! by simply plugging your DS-Xtreme into your PC and performing a complete update we could re-program your device into something completely different . With a click of a button it’s even possible to completely implement one of the most popular and state of the art cpu architectures out there today. (and run it at 10 times the speed your ds is running at ;-) )

Buy: [DS-Xtreme (DS-X) 4Gb (512MB) All-In-One Flash Storage Solution]

We reported earlier that a new update was coming shortly for the DS-Xtreme DS flashcart, and here it is - v1.0.2! Along with the new update, the DS-X team have also released a beta version of their "Win32 Update Tool". The Windows update tool allows updating of the DS-X a breeze (no need to constantly download new update files each time a new one is released). The tool will automatically detect the newest update and what your current version is and installs it.

The newest, and first update - 1.0.2 adds improved compatibility and support for Supercard (SC) saves has been added along with other fixes and changes. I was thrilled to see the support for SC saves because I could use the G6 Save Converter to convert my M3 or G6 save files into a Supercard format (.sav) and now I can use that on my DS-X! Here's a full list of the changes in this new firmware -

• Support for "Direct" format textures in UI engine
• Recognition of id3v2 tags in mp3/ogg
• Now supports supercard save files
• Added a "getOSVersion" function, for use in the skin to report the true OS version.
• Corrected virtual eeprom bank mapping
• Fixed a problem with some MP3s crashing
• MBR and partition parsing now correctly handled, should fix some filesystem issues, especially for OSX users
• Some minor changes to libfat auto-integration, should fix problems with ndsmail, etc
• OS now powers off LCDs when suspended
• Minor optimizations in raw device access

Download: [Win32 Updating Tool]
Download: [DS-X OS v1.0.2 Skin Files] - Replace previous skin folder with this new one

The launch of the DS-Xtreme (DS Flashcart) was a huge success, with both the IRC and support forums busy with commotion and anticipation. Now that the product is released, the real test begins - how long can it last, and will it be supported as well as promised? Well, both of these questions must be answered by the test of time, but with only a little over a week since it was released, the DS-X is already seeing its first system update!

DS-X Guru over at the DS-X forums has informed the community that a new update is "coming really soon" in the form of the 1.0.2 update (current version at 1.0.1). When this new update is released, we will jump right on it, even if it may only be a few fixes. I'm looking forward to each and every release made by DS-X team.

The DS-Xtreme was dispatched to several sites for review, and we were lucky enough to be one of those sites! The DS-Xtreme is a slot-1 flashcart which has up to 512mb (4Gigabits) of storage. This device will play NDS files, but will not play GBA files since they aren’t supported from the slot-1 of the NDS. This device just never ceased to amaze me every time I turned on my NDSL, and with future updates to come – this is a great product! In the full article after the jump, you will learn all about this new product, its revolutionary features and overall performance in my extensive review!

Visit: [DS-X Website]
Support: [DS-X Forums]
Purchase: [List of Online Retailers]