Hands-on with DS Browser

Nintendo DS Browser finally gets its UK launch today, bringing (most of) the internet to DS owners lucky enough to have access to a wireless internet connection. We took it on a whistle-stop tour of the net's most popular sites to see what it could do - and the results were quite surprising.

Setup is easy. There are a few configuration screens, but nothing more complicated than any other online DS game. You are asked to enter a password, just so that no one else can use it without your permission, then within a few minutes you're up and surfing.

The first, tragic news is that the browser doesn't support Flash, so that's one up for PSP already. But there's a whole web of other possibilities out there - here's what we found.

www.google.com

Loads in a few seconds, so we're soon searching away. It looks just as you'd expect and the duel-screen modes are fun to explore. A quick Google for 'eBay' returns a financial graph for the company and a link to the site. Excellent.

Speed: 4/5
Ease of use: 5/5
Display: 5/5
Functionality: 5/5

www.ebay.com

The site loads very slowly but signing in isn't a problem and searching for a product works, although the multiple thumbnail view slows everything to a crawl for 30 seconds or so until the pictures are loaded. However, the multiple frame format is both logical and neatly arranged. If you knew exactly what you were after, you could conceivably buy on eBay via DS Browser. Pretty good.

Speed: 1/5
Ease of use: 3/5
Display: 4/5
Functionality: 3/5