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I was offered a measure of credit towards any other product on their web site but the only items for NDS amounted to a light-up stylus and a camouflage carrying case with a matching car charger. I experienced similar problems that others have described. Hardly a replacement for a charger grip that would have been amazing for that upcoming 11-hour overseas flight.So I'm out ten bucks because the retailer has no more for exchange. I can either hack the device to try to fix the battery or take a chance wasting another ten bucks for a possible working device. It also gets noticeably warm, almost hot, in that center battery area while in play mode.I called NYKO for support and was informed that the item has been discontinued. The charger will stay on charge all day long but give only a few minutes worth of extra power to the NDS when switched to play mode. There is no other similar product offered by the company for the NDS. Now where's that tri-blade screwdriver.
It was definitely a better choice than buying a generic replacement battery for the aging original equipment Nintendo rechargeable battery. The first Charger Grip we received wouldn't charge. I have no hesitation in recommending this product. Returning it through Amazon was very easy as postage and mailing label printed easily from the Amazon website. NYKO customer service advised exchanging it for a new unit. The replacement Charger Grip arrived faster than the first and has worked flawlessly to provide on the fly recharges to my son's Nintendo DS lite. Excellent value.
I wish it were a little thinner in the middle to give the sides more roundness. I do still get some discomfort from time to time and can see some room for improvement here and there, but, overall it does succeed in making using a DS Lite easier on the hands by a fair margin. More importantly though, it tries to force too much power through at once or shorts out or something, so drains the battery even faster (and getting it even hotter) and even has been reported in some cases to damage chargers (I did not test this much, so can't comment on how true this is or is not). After some deliberation I decided it wasn't worth trying to send back as I bought this for the grip rather than the charger and simply cut that part off (though if you have the security screwdriver it would be better simply to disable it as that part works very nicely to help hold the DS in place -- despite that it seems to have been intended for that though, my DS seems to stay in well. If I need an emergency charger, I have a USB charging cable and there are many devices that can power USB devices via a battery. Remember people, even lithium ion batteries loose capacity as you use more recharge cycles.
Sadly though, the stylus can be really hard to pull out of the provided holder with this grip which might be a problem in some games requiring one to work quickly.PS. I didn't see any other similar products that didn't look to be of a really low quality, so I went ahead with this.First of all, as you'll note others saying, there are issues with the built in battery. Upon someone's suggestion I decided to try one of these. In the case of mine, it was already so bad by the time I got it as to make the charger part useless. I do rate it a 3/5 because it has a decent amount of room for improvement as a grip, but overall I feel like it's worth the relatively small amount I spent on it. It doesn't charge well (and gets worse very quickly over time).
One thing I like is how it uses the stylus holder to help hold the DS in and provides a stylus holder in itself to compensate. If your DS has been used for a long time, you may just need a new battery more than you need any sort of backup charger. Also, it still doesn't perfectly solve the problem that some games can be a little rough on the hands (particularly Mario Kart) so it may not be ideal for everyone (but then it doesn't help that my hands are just the wrong size apparently -- small for an adult, but large for a child). Now I just use it as a grip. It would not even hold enough charge to power the DS for more than a second after the orange light came on before it would quit (and this is even with the DS turned off). Which brings me to my second point.As a grip, it's not so bad.
I would suggest that if you are considering this product, you should consider it more on the merits as a grip than any sort of backup power system.
It will give me extra battery when I'm unable to charge my DS making it much easier to carry around without worries5 to 8 extra charge hours. My NDS is my number one companion on trips, specially per plane. So this has turned out to be an excellent purchase for my ever growing collection. Who could ask for anything more.
It combines very well to things that I was looking for my DS: more time to play and in a comfortable way.
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