Slot 2 Carts to Pair Up with My Slot 1 Cart?

With slot 1 flash carts dominating the market, the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS’s remains empty, with infinite possibilities.  Because slot 2 carts generally still have many advantages, people are turning to slot 2 solutions to pair up with their slot 1 cart.

Slot 2 carts have several functionalities that a slot 1 cart like the R4 cannot accomplish alone.  These features are:

GBA Playback:  Only the slot 2 of the Nintendo DS and DS Lite is able to play GBA.
GBA Union:  With a game in each slot, some games can unlock extra features.
RAM:  Some slot 2 carts have built-in RAM, this RAM allows the Opera Web Browser to be run.
Rumble:  Only a few games have rumble, however, it is a nice feature.

What are the major competitors?

EZ Flash 3 in 1 Expansion Pack:  This cart’s reputation is growing tremendously, it is the one cart that has all 4 of the features mentioned above, and it has an incredibly low price.  The downside to this cart is the fact that you do need a slot 1 cart to write things into the cart, and that the cart has enough memory for only 1 GBA game.  It also does not have a RTC, which means Pokemon games will not work correctly unless patched, which ruins the GBA union for Pokemon games.

EZ Flash 4 Lite Deluxe: Another cart designed by the EZ Team is the EZ Flash 4. Previously considered as a bad option because of the lack of ram, the EZ Flash 3 in 1 Expansion Pack's success is bringing in new supporters for EZ products. The most notable change is the fact that now the EZ Flash 4 series' RAM is recognized by the Opera Web Browser. This makes the EZ Flash 4 a great option because all of the EZ Flash products have been recognized as the best of the best when it comes to GBA, and the fact that it also works as a RAM pack gives it some versatility.

G6 Lite:  One of the greatest slot 2 flash carts on the market, but also one of the most expensive.  The G6 Lite has 512mb built-in, has an RTC, plays all NDS and GBA games, functions as a RAM pack, and of course comes in more than one case.  This clearly makes the G6 Lite one of the greatest slot 2 carts, however, it is pricey, and it does not have rumble.

M3 Lite:  Similar to the G6 Lite, the M3 Lite costs a lot and has all the same functions.  However, it utilizes MicroSD cards, which allows users to have far more memory.  Once again, this is a good choice if you can afford the price tag.

Supercard Lite:  The Supercard Lite has limited GBA capabilities, but in general it has about 80% support for GBA games, and a weird save system.  However, it does play NDS games flawlessly, and it is quite cheap.  The Supercard Lite does homebrew incredibly well as well.  If you are looking for some GBA support, the Supercard Lite is the way to go, all the major games run fine on it.

Slot 2 carts are different from each other by a large number of variables.  And because of that, the decision of which slot 2 cart to get is a very broad question, and can only be answered by your own personal preferences.  As you can see from just the major competitors, you can already get completely different products.

In general, if you just want something nice and simple that will give you 1 or 2 GBA games at a time, and give you some features such as rumble, the EZ Flash 3 in 1 Expansion Pack is the way to go.  If you are planning to play a lot of GBA games then you go with the EZ Flash 4, the M3 Lite or the G6 Lite. If you plan to pay real little, but want more than a few GBA games, then try out the Supercard series, they give pretty decent GBA games, but just don't expect perfection.

My personal suggestion, the EZ Flash 4. It is a solid product if you want to play both GBA and NDS games. It is reasonably priced. And also, it does the same thing the high end M3 Lite does. Why pay extra?