Supercard DS ONEi Review

The DSi reviews are finally rolling out. I’ve been waiting to try out several carts at once before actually reviewing and scoring them so that I’d get a better look at what was available, so I had to delay some of the reviews quite a bit, and actually work on these simultaneously. Anyways, today marks the first of the DSi reviews, and over the next few days I will finish up the AceKard 2i review as well as the iTouch2 review. So keep your eyes peeled!

Read the review.

The Supercard DS ONEi is the DSi reiteration of the Supercard DS ONE. We’ve reviewed several versions of the Supercard DS ONE in the past, and each time there were significant upgrades to the software.

The Supercard team has dedicated themselves to their products for many years now, they started out with carts for the Gameboy Advance, and they are still selling well now. They have been known for providing updates well beyond what is generally required and providing more features over time.

This is the latest installment in the Supercard series, and I’m sure there will be plenty more.

So what’s special about this Supercard DS ONEi? Well asides from being perfectly compatible with all models of the DS including the new Nintendo DSi, the Supercard DS ONEi comes with a USB adapter, touting the ability to upgrade the bootloader of the cart without the use of the DS. Because of the DSi’s ability to upgrade its firmware, there is a lot of speculation that over time, Nintendo may release firmwares that will block out flash carts or their method of running, much like how old DS carts no longer work.

It runs on the DSi.

This is a genuine concern for the many that want a cart that will last, and flash cart makers such as the EZ Flash team and the AceKard team have put in rewriteable chips where they store the firmware, so that they can essentially rewrite the entire cart and change the way they boot. These carts however require that you turn on the DSi and run the file in the cart, but the Supercard team saw this as a problem. How would you turn on your DSi and run the cart if it has been blocked already? Their solution is a USB adapter that simply powers the cart to run the update. Because it doesn’t do any actual programming, this USB adapter supposedly runs even if you connect it to an AC adapter, and it doesn’t matter if it is connected to a MAC or PC.

The Supercard DS ONEi is currently the only flash cart with a USB firmware updater, the rest of the competition either cannot run updates or do it through the cart’s menu.