The Search For The 3DS Ideal
As much as I enjoy playing the
games and that will always come first, I do enjoy the hardware/technology side
of things and what sort of effect it can have on the medium.
Adventures like this have led me to
ordering multiple Super Famicom's from Japan, (in the search for a 1-CHIP
version with superior video output) and meeting shady men outside the back of
Sky Broadcasting centre buying Sony PVM’s from the back of their van.
It's an experience I tell thee.
My most recent deep dive into
hardware, displays and curios is the Nintendo 3DS screen technology type and
how they find their way into different consoles.
It’s seems that Nintendo used two
types of LCD screen technology in their 3DS range of consoles IPS
(In-Plane-Switching) & TN (Twisted-Nematic). Think of it like Plasma and
LCD from back in the day.
I’m currently going through an
Indian summer romance with my 3DS and have been using it more than anything
else of late.
A few weeks ago I was browsing
r/3DS and came across a post where someone was asking which version of the 3DS
was most desirable. Zelda, Pikachu, Samus, etc…..
The first post kindly gave their
opinion and with their closing sentence pointing out that regardless of
aesthetic appearance, the most importing thing was to try and get an IPS screen
over a TN.
This was the finger that tickled my
curiosity – what the hell does that mean ?!
Followed by a quick Google, I found
a Polygon article which addressed the situation.
It’s not an even split either, the
ratio of screens out in the wild appears to favour rather heavily on the TN
range side of things, potentially because TN screens are cheaper to produce.
Because of this, the IPS screen is scarcer and thus, perhaps more desirable.
Hmmmmm.
There appears to be no sort of
indication either as to what type of screen you will get in your 3DS console,
region, size, serial number or release date don’t appear to give any sort of
guarantee as to what screen you will receive (there is perhaps an exception
though).
Firstly, both types of screen are
LCD and each have their own benefits one way or another, just like Plasma and
LCD did say.
The main stand out differences
between them however are as such;
IPS
Brighter colours
Much wider viewing angles
TN
Quicker response times
Higher contrast
Granted, this means very little in
reality and the one that maybe sticks out most is response times – it’s worth
pointing out mind that we’re not talking huge difference in response times IPS
can be as low as 4ms and TN as low as 1ms.
The unicorn 3DS, or perfect
scenario is apparently IPS screen on both top and bottom of the console. Doing
some research into the choice people seem to go as far as to bulk buy damaged
3DS’s in the hope that one, or maybe both screens are IPS and will transfer the
screens out. Which comes with it’s own complications and issues.
With all this in mind, I picked up
my current 3DS that I’ve been using and wondered what I had.
I’m currently using the New 3DS-XL,
which I bought in 2016 when Nintendo increased the size of their original 3DS
hardware with the ‘New’ revision.
Incidentally, since I bought the
console I’m using now, I stumped up the pennies for the later Samus version
that was released September 2017 in conjunction with the Samus Returns
re-release. Not being particularly fond of that aesthetically compared to my Peal
White XL, it sits in it’s box on my shelf bringing me a level of happiness I
can’t rational.
Perhaps the latest, special edition
version I had has an output that a display deva would covert and would be worth
swapping over to using ?
To test the screens to see what you
have in there, you can use an app that will work on cracked 3DS’ but I have no
interest in hacking my 3DS and certainly won’t be for this, you can tell,
simply by looking at them and doing a few tests to see whats what.
I gathered all my 3DS’ and booted
them up to see if I could see any sort of difference between them and straight
away, I thought I could see a difference in one over the others.
To try and show the difference I
have placed it next to my Samus Edition N3DS-XL – the newer of the systems.
I’ve also set the screens to full
brightness, power saving off and tried to get them to display similar things.
It’s tricky to photograph and isn’t
instantly apparent at all, I don’t think, unless you have two screens next to
each other, or when you start tilting the screens. Even then it’s not that
clear.
However, having two side by side
with different screens it becomes quite clear.
So, I’m 50% off from having the
Ultimate 3DS Unicorn but I won’t be buying bulk systems or pulling what is left
of my hair out in disarray of having a bottom NT screen.
I’ve noticed on a few occasions, that I was impressed by the step up in quality that my
N3DS-XL gave over its slightly smaller brother. Without even knowing that
perhaps that was because of different screen technology being used – I just
assumed it was the extra grunt and larger screen that gave the brighter,
clearer image.
Looking about the internet and
watching various video’s on the subject, it seems that the most common source
of getting your eyes onto one, or even two of these IPS screens is to get the
Zelda Hyrule Edition N3DS-XL but even then people report that that isn’t a
guaranteed avenue to go down.
It seems that the screen allocation
is totally random, even serial numbers are way off in terms of any correlation
between IPS models and that it’s simply down to the luck of the draw – similar
to the Super Nintendo 1-CHIP scenario then.
It’s not essential but I certainly
found it interesting.
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