If you don't have a camera, an MP3 player, or a DS already, then surely your curiosity has been piqued by the official announcement of the DSi, Nintendo's new iPhone-flavored system. It has some fancy new tricks up its sleeve, but those tricks have a price, and the currency is battery life.

According to spec comparisons, a DS Lite at the maximum brightness lasts you about five to eight hours, while a DSi at the maximum brightness will net you a mere three to four hours of fun. Of course, only a thorough hands-on will find out what activities last longer and which elements suck up the most life. 

While this matters to someone like myself who does a lot of traveling and plays a lot of portable games, this probably won't affect those who are buying it for the extra features -- the people who are basically after an iPhone without the phone parts and the $70-a-month bills that come with it. A shorter battery isn't going to affect these people, who are too busy "hanging out" at the "mall" with people called "Chase" or "Dawson" to strain the juice on their machines too much. 

Still, this is some terrific negative news for me to take out of context like always, so let's instead go with this: The DSi only runs for thirty seconds and Metal Gear Solid 4 is going to be on the DS but it will come in 100,000 cartridges because the DS sucks! Thank you.