Hands-on: Nintendo 2DS Review

Nintendo unveiled its Nintendo 2DS in late August as a version of its popular 3DS video game handheld that would be targeted towards “very young kids.” When Nintendo originally made their announcement, many gamers didn’t believe it to be an actual product, but seeing how we were able to get our hands on the Nintendo 2DS this weekend at the New York Comic Con, we can tell you that indeed is a product and it’s not as bad as you think it is. One of the biggest differences of the Nintendo 2DS when compared with the Nintendo 3DS is the fact the 2DS doesn’t have a hinge, making it easier for you to toss into your backpack or for your little ones to throw around the room. The frame of the NIntendo 2DS isn’t any more durable than the 3DS, but going with a hingeless design makes it slightly more durable for the fact the hinge is the part of the 3DS most people broke during heavy use.

When you first saw images of the Nintendo 2DS, we’re sure you were wondering how exactly it feels in the hands, especially since its controls seems to hover in an odd location when compared to their location on the Nintendo 3DS. The Nintendo 2DS actually fits inside of my 31-year-old hands quite nicely as it has a slight slope that keeps it well balanced when you’re playing, and my hands felt like they were in the perfect spot when my thumbs were placed on its controls and face buttons. Speaking of buttons, some of the buttons have received a slight tweak on the Nintendo 2DS, such as the handheld’s Home and Power buttons. Seeing how they can stop your game at any time with a simple press, they’ve been better integrated into the frame of the handheld to help from accidental button presses. The overall feel of the Nintendo 2DS is very similar to the plastic feel of its Nintendo 3DS XL, although it’s nowhere near as large or as heavy. The Nintendo 2DS feel like it should fit somewhere between the 3DS and 3DS XL as it incorporates a number of physical attributes of the latter, while it retains the screen size of the former. Its weight is also something that parents will appreciate if they’re planning to pick up a 2DS for their kids as its extremely light as I was able to twist and turn it with very little effort.

One of the other big changes Nintendo is making to the Nintendo 2DS is the fact it doesn’t have any sort of 3D technology behind its main screen. I personally enjoy my games in 2D as I could never find quite the right setting to enjoy the 3D in the 3DS, but one of the main reasons why Nintendo decided to keep things 2D on the 2DS is probably due to the possibility of staring at 3D images for hours on end could not be so great for the eyes of small children. The 2DS allows them to play for as long as they want, so long as their parents permit it, that is. One thing I found interesting was even though the there’s no 3D in the Nintendo 2DS, Nintendo still included dual rear-facing cameras to take 3D images. If you happen to own a Nintendo 3DS, you can just pop the SD card from the 2DS into it in order to see those 3D photos, but those who only own a 2DS won’t be able to see anything besides 2D images. We’re not sure what Nintendo was thinking in this case as they probably could have saved a few more bucks from manufacturing the 2DS if they included only a single camera at its rear. On the other hand, the single front-facing camera seems to have gone completely unchanged. Both the Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL have dual speakers, but for the Nintendo 2DS, Nintendo decided to only include one speaker, which sits just above its control stick. Since our time with the Nintendo 2DS was taking place while we were in the middle of a large convention, it was impossible for us to get an idea of just how good the single speaker on the handheld sounds. If that’s a concern to you, we recommend you take your ears over to a GameStop or other retailer that may have a Nintendo 2DS available to demo so you can judge for yourself whether or not a single speaker would make that much of an impact on your enjoyment of the handheld.