EZflash IV deluxe review, special thanks go to BamBooGaming.com

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Introduction

Welcome to my review of the EZflash IV (deluxe). The EZflash team has decided to release two products this time, the EZflash IV deluxe and the EZflash IV compact, both designed after the original NDSL dust cover. They are to replace the older,original EZflash IV. The new card have different different prices; the deluxe version sells for 35.10 euro's while it's little brother, the compact version, sells for 19.63 euro's at my good friends at BamBooGaming.com (purely the card, no combo-pack). They do not only vary in price but also in features. The deluxe version has the GBA functionality we all know from the original EZflash IV and is also able to play NDS games. Whereas the compact version only plays NDS games. My sample was the EZflash IV deluxe, so I got a chance to test out both. Though when you are shopping for a cheaper card and are not interested in GBA game playing, the NDS part of the review also applies to the compact version so by skipping the GBA part of the review your product is reviewed. As standard with BamBooGaming.com I do not receive the packaging as is normall shipping procedure which cuts back the shipping costs. Therefore I can only speculate on the quality and looks of the packaging after looking at images from the official website or other locations.

The Review

Looking at the packaging




As said, I have not received the packaging and can therefore only speculate on the quality and style. I also only received the card itself and the spare cartridge but not the SD/mSD adapter (BamBooGaming ships a different adapter then the one normally included with the EZflash IV). Though, it seems similar to that which came together with the DSlink. The adapter that came with DSlink is of nice quality, and makes sure you don't need to buy an extra adapter. So if you order a microSD card together with your GBA media adapter you will never need to leave your home ;).

As for my thoughts on the packaging. The packaging seems sturdy, and will survive shipping fairly good. And although it is not a tin can, the cartboard seems quite adequite. I also really like the design, it's very sleek!

Remember though, that it is standard shipping policy with BamBooGaming not to ship the packaging. Not to worry though, everything I have received from them (no special treatment ;)) came in fine with no harm to the product.



Also note that the SD adapter shipped by BamBooGaming is the one I´m talking about, though pretty much the same seems to go for the one normally shipped with the EZflash IV deluxe-compact (though it does not look like the one shipped with DSlink).




Build quality

The build quality of the EZflash IV deluxe/compact is debatable. Though the plastic is quite though, and the PCB is quite nice it has a few very annoying problems. The most apparent problem is the fact that the cart is not "clicked/held" together by other means then the screw. This means that you can bend open the cart with the screw in place.

Eventhough when you know about this problem, any trouble can be avoided, this may still cause problems on an incidental basis. The second problem is the fact that the microSD card is not spring loaded. Although this should not have to be a problem, because of the case of the EZflash IV the microSD card becomes enourmously hard to take out. I have started to use a flat-head screw to take it out as with any other tool I could think of the microSD would not budge. Once I got the hang of it it went very good with the screw (even without damage to my card), but this is certainly a feature to be improved. Aside from those glitches the build quality is very good. As stated before both the PCB and plastic are good (the plastic is able to bend, but not very quickly).

Another thing I liked is the scew holding the cart intact. It's very smartly made into the cart and is also something I find very smart.

This because this screw has a very low chance of harming your NDSL. Because this screw is a speric-head, if by some chance it will stick out slightly, it will not hook onto your NDSL's front plastic (as once happend to me with a different product nearly breaking my DS there).



Looks

The Looks of the EZflash IV deluxe-compact were quite appealing (in my opinion). I really like the stylish design of the sticker on the card.

But what I found most appealing was that the color of the casing matched the color of my NDSL the closest I have yet seen (a near perfect match!). Now comes the all important question on wether or not the fit inside the NDSL matched that of the original dust cover; I am afraid to say that I cannot conclusivly say "Yes, it does" or "No, it doesn't". When I first inserted the EZflash IV deluxe it was in the white casing that came with my delivery. This sadly stuck out a bit (though I am used to working with either GBA sized cases or ones even bigger so I did not find this annoying). However when I changed the cases to the black one, to my surprise the fit was much better (though still not perfect).

I have read that the fit generally is not perfect so I think the EZflash IV deluxe/compact will always stick out slighlty, but depending on your shipment the extent of it sticking out may vary significantly.



GBA use/compatibility (ONLY FOR THE DELUXE VERSION!)

GBA functions is something the EZflash cards are very well known for. The EZflash IV deluxe card is no different. As I was unable to find a GBA compatibility list of the EZflash IV in a short time I set out to try a large amount of GBA games on the cart. Any game I tried worked flawlessly, so GBA support is very high and the speed is also very good. Although there is (currently) a flaw that when starting a GBA game from the NDS menu the speed / amount of frames per second is somehow dropped (to describe it better, it seems like frames are being skipped). However if you are booting in GBA mode this seems not to be a problem. This may (and is most logically) caused by a software/firmware glitch. At the current time I recommend when starting a GBA game you boot your DS in GBA mode. Something else that may be a problem is the fact that the EZflash IV deluxe does not have an RTC (real-time-clock). Not many games use this function though games that do use it may encounter difficulties. The GBA menu is factory defaulted (at least it was on my sample) to (simplified) Chinese. As I do not speak Chinese this was quite a pain, though once I had found the "English" option this problem was fixed.



NDS function/compatibility

The NDS functionality of the EZflash IV deluxe/compact is very nice. Most games are supported, and updates seem to be regularly made. The speed of the games is also quite good (the CV intro movie for example experienced only some hickups as with nealy all cards). There is only one thing I do not like about the NDS functionality, which is only an issue when you are using a PassMe2. The gamesaves are made once you restart your DS after playing a game. This means that if you are using a PassMe2 the SRAM will be overwritten thus you are unable to boot. You can however fix this by booting into GBA mode, this makes the EZflash IV save to file, then write the SRAM data and restart your DS. This can be quite a pain. Though as I stated earlier if you are using a NoPass or somthing similar that does not require a specific SRAM file to be written there will be no problem and the EZflash IV can compete with the best.



Note: At the time of writing the EZflash website has been down for a very long time, this means that updates are unavailable. Though updates are downloadable from sosuke.com I am unsure wether they are also able to distribute new updates that have not yet been available on the EZflash website.




The PC side

The PC side of the EZflash IV deluxe/compact consists of the patcher software (and you could say the skinnig software for the EZflash loader). The patcher software is quite easy to use and supports quite a few languages. Though not all commands are logically choosen (for example "open" which is selecting the game you want to patch). As for the looks, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (I am not such a big fan, whereas a friend of mine really likes it).





Conclusion


The EZflash IV deluxe and compact are nice additions to the scene. Although homebrew support is still somewhat limited (recently FATlib's have been released, so if homebrew programs are updated FATlib homebrew should be supported. Aside FATlib homebrew .ds.gba homebrew works) backups work very nice. There are however some flaws in the device, such as a hard to take out microSD card (being the most problamatic one). For 20 to 35 euro's however this is a good card for you to buy if you want decent game playing (though at the time of writing the EZflash website has been down for a very long time, so I cannot say much about general support) in DS, and excelent GBA play.




Overall rating for the EZflash IV deluxe GBA media adapter
Discription	Rating (out of 10)
Design Boxart, manual and product appeal	7
Hardware Hardware design, durability and features	7
Compatibility Overall Homebrew and NDS game (if applies) compatibility score	7
Product future What this products future looks like	promising
Features Scoring of extra features of the product	none



The insides of the EZflash IV deluxe

I hope you all enjoyed my review and found it useful.

-Simon van de Berg

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