- Introduction -

The generation of slot 1 carts dominated over the slot 2 market late 2006.  It seemed to be the logical step, to rid ourselves of clunky slot 2 solutions, and use the smaller, sleeker, slot 1 carts.  However, it was lacking one major function, GBA playback.

Despite being “last generation”, there are still many classics on the GBA that are well worth playing.  From the classic Pokemon series to the more recent Summon Night games, it seems that to this day, the GBA still has some of the greatest games known to handheld gamers.  But slot 1 carts cannot play them.

What is EZ Team’s solution to this?  They pair up their slot 1 cart with a slot 2 expansion pack that gives not only GBA support, but RAM and rumble.  The EZ Flash 3-in-1 Expansion Pack features 4MB of PSRAM, 32MB of NOR and 2Mbit of SRAM.  It also features a battery to hold saves, and a motor that rumbles.

During the initial release, the EZ Flash 3-in-1 Expansion Pack was limited to EZ Flash V users only.  It gave a great boost to EZ Flash V sales as the expansion pack costs almost nothing in a bundle. 

However, with the release of standalone EZ Flash 3-in-1 Expansion Packs for older EZ Flash V users that hadn’t had the chance to buy one, users of other slot 1 carts wanted in.  Thankfully, patches were made by cory1492, BigBoss and anonYmous.  These patches are still work in progress, however, it is well on its way.  At this point, the patches allow full support for web browser, GBA functions, and even rumble.

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- Introduction -

Supercard is a well known brand in the DS scene.  Having a line of 9 quality flash carts, as well as being immensely popular, there is no doubt about how much craze this flash cart has hyped up.

The Supercard DS ONE is the first Supercard to work on slot 1 of a Nintendo DS or DS Lite.  It doubles as a Superkey (a passme) and it fits flush in slot 1.  Using a MicroSD, it supports FAT and FAT32, clean roms, and has an integrated moonshell for its loader.

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- Introduction -

The EZ Flash team has been around for a long time, they have been in the scene since the release of the Gameboy Advance.  However, they haven’t gained the popularity they deserve.  At this point, it seems to most people that the major competitors of the flash cart market is between the Supercard team, the M3 team and possibly the R4 team, however, the EZ Flash team has put out they next major addition to their flash cart family, the EZ Flash V.

The EZ Flash V has a very different approach than the other carts on the market in terms of design as well as how games run.  During the time of this review, the EZ Flash team has released a slot 2 add-on for the EZ Flash V called the EZ Flash 3 in 1, giving the EZ Flash V abilities to run GBA roms, the Opera Web Browser as well as utilizing the rumble feature of games supporting rumble.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get a hold of this fantastic add-on for this review.

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- Introduction -

The R4DS is currently the most hyped card in the market, and there is a good reason.  The amount of support and claims that this card has is huge, enough to attract the attention of the entire NDS scene, despite the fact that not much is known about the R4 team.

The R4DS and the M3 Simply have some clear similarities, and most people would just say that they are the same thing.  This brings up the topic of batches.  The first batch of R4DS has a jumper to change between the R4DS and the M3 Simply firmware, as well as a jumper to change between Chinese and English firmware.  The second batch of the R4DS has had the R4DS and M3 Simply toggle removed.  And finally the third batch has the language jumper removed as well.  For this review, I am using the third batch of R4DS with a Chinese firmware, which is the batch that is still currently in the market.

Unforturnately, I not only got a third batch R4DS, it is using the Chinese firmware as well.

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