Express Card review, special thanks go to the XP card team 22nd Januari 2007

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Introduction

Welcome to my review of the Express Card; A new flashcart device for the Nintendo DS. This review is however also applicable on a number of other devices (I have yet to receive samples of them so I can't be a 100% sure), namely the DS Fire Link, the NeoFlash MK5 and possibly others. Here are the official specs of the Express Card (remember this info is from the original website; I didn't type this):

Product introduction
The XP Card comes out with the highest performance cost ratio as a DS SLOT-1 flash cartridge. It is just an amazing little device the same size as original DS cart and it operates without any extra storage device like Micro SD card etc. to save your money at most. It works as USB disk in any PC so you just need to Drag and Drop your ROMs from your PC to this little device. In brief, you buy a greatly USB Disk that can work with your NDS/NDS Lite when you buy an XP Card.

Features
1. 1:1 original card size.
2. No FlashMe, No PassMe, No conversion anymore.
3. Lowest Cost of Owning. Built-in NAND Flash up to 8Gbits. No extra storage device required.
4. 100% Clean Rom Support. 100% game compatibility.
5. Working as a USB disk. No PC software required. Just Drag 'n Drop file from PC to XP-card.
6. Hardware virtual saving supported. Backup and exchange saves with other players easily.
7. Micro firmware design, skin which is fully upgradeable.
8. MoonShell built-in design.
9. Low power consuming and long sustaining time.

The review

Looking at the packaging

Sadly my sample got damaged during shipment. Apparently customs felt it necessary to forcefully open the packaging by cutting it open. Thankfully the product itself was unharmed and it survived well enough for me to review it.

The outer packaging is made of a rather thin, quadrangle, laminated cardboard shell. The top of the packaging shows signs of a rough shipping, though I can't be entirely sure if it had a rough shipping (due to the fact that the bottom is in a perfect state and the fact that it was cut open). I'm not entirely sure the packaging will survive standard shipping properly, though the product itself should be unharmed.

The box-art is very clean to say the least. I like the look but I can understand that some people might think it's a bit too much. All the packaging mentions is the products name, URL and a picture of a DSL.

What's inside that little box? Contents:


• The Express Card
• The Express writer
• An USB to USB mini-B cable

So there isn't much special in the boxing. Thankfully though they did ship the USB cable (I've heard this is sometimes not done with products).

Build quality

The build quality of the Express Card is quite high. The plastic thickness is sufficient, it's also quite tough and the shell perfectly matches an original card (which I can conclude because of the fact that it fits perfectly in my DS lite which is very picky). They even made a small part of the back part of the shell lower like on original cards (where the Nintendo logo and etc. are). One thing I do like less is the sticker. It feels like something someone did on a home printer. Also, the plastic seems to be less thick in the middle of the card where a flash chip is probably housed.

The writer is of slightly less high quality. The plastic is quite thin, though also hard. In my sample the mini-b USB slot was also incredibly tight (which meant that when I wanted to remove the USB plug I couldn't help but removing the whole writer). Apart from that it closely matches an original GBA game and fits well in both the DS and DS-lite's GBA slot (detected as a DS option pack). As you can see from the PCB shots, the writer is a writer and only that. It won't help you run OperaDS or add rumble features (in case you were wondering).

Looks
What is there to say about looks? The stickers look like they have been printed at home (they feel just like a sheet of paper). Strangely enough the sticker/text on the DS cart is even placed up-side-down. Other than that there isn't much to say really.

Using the Express Card
Using the Express Card for the first time: Let's be a silly bunch and put the Express card into our DS right out of the box shall we? After being greeted by the health and safety warning we enter the DS's main menu (also when your DS is flashed). Here you can select the Express card. Once we start it up we are greeted by the Express card's menu. Now on first boot only Moonshell is installed, but to show you the menu's “features” I've already placed other .nds files on the cart.

The Express card's menu is somewhat strange. The bottom screen shows cubes with game icons as sides which spin around (in all directions). When you are hovering over one the cube stops spinning but starts expanding and shrinking. You can also use the touch screen to select a cube. The top screen shows you the game icon (but this time like you see it in the DS's main menu), the file name, the game size (original game size that is), save type, the last time you saved, the game code (the four letter code given to each game) and the page that the icon/game is in (because the Express card uses cubes to show the games, the menu is made up out of pages. Each page contains a maximum of 12 cubes). This means that the game name is NOT shown. This may of course change over time (as this is the first firmware released). Selecting a cube creates some "slowdown" in the menu itself; the cubes stop spinning and it takes about half a second for the cube to start expanding/shrinking and the top screen shows the info.

Now to put some games on the Express card. To flash the Express card we need to get the Express writer, insert it in the DS's GBA slot and boot up the Express card like we did earlier. When entering the DS's main menu the writer shows up as a Nintendo DS option pack which is good. We again select the Express card, but this time instead of the Express card's menu the top screen is turned off and the bottom screen shows only this text in blue:

MOUNT FLASH DISK...

Once the computer detects and mounts the Express card (like a normal USB drive) the text changes from blue to green and to:

MOUNT FLASH DISK...
USB DISK PROGRAM (8G_256K)

The Express card is also mounted properly when using Linux (tested using OpenSuse 10.1). When you write files to the Express card the text starts fading from black to red until the writing is done. Here are some results of speed tests I performed.

I'm not quite sure in what order the icons are shown in the Express card's menu, but it's clearly not alphabetical. Of course one can argue if that matters if you can't see the names. You can by the way put your games in folders if you want. The Express card's firmware checks every folder for .nds files and displays them all in the icon menu.

Performance wise the Express card is pretty good. I've yet to find a game that doesn't boot, and there is close to no slowdown. This also applies to recent problematic titles such as the new pokémon series. I've also tested the Castlevania intro movie which plays flawlessly. And there is hardly any (noticable) slowdown in Tony Hawk's American Sk8land. Starting games also doesn't take more than a second or two. As said the save file type is read from a file rather then checked which means that games that aren't in the file won't get a proper save file choosen. You can however manually choose the save type by pressing select+left/right.

One can also properly use Nintendo DS expansion packs. I've tested the RAM expansion pack (and the SuperCard/M3 replacements) which all work as should.

Download play does NOT work. No download play title I tested worked (among others New Super Mario Brothers, Yoshi touch and go and Metroid Prime Hunters).

Homebrew is supported, however only .nds (currently). At this time no FATlib has been released, nor a DLDI patch. I've contacted the Express card team about this and suggested a speedy release of a FATlib/DLDI patch.




Conclusion

First off the Express card is a nice product. Build quality and ease of use are clearly what this card wants to sell on. Both points have been met though one better than the other. The build quality of the cart is quite high (the writer's thin plastic it the only real down point) and it matches the original DS shell perfectly. The menu and flashing systems are very easy to operate (with the added bonus that it also works when using Linux) an example being the fact that save files automatically get created. Also the fact that one can select the Express card like a normal game (though pretty much a standard feature now) is good.

All games I tested worked with no (heavy noticable) problems/lag, even ones that are known to give problems such as Castlevania. The menu system could however still use some work (it's quite unclear, though after a while you partially get used to it) but that can of course come over time as it is just firm/software.

The fact that a writer is used that uses the GBA slot is however a choice I wouldn't have made. It probably lowers the cost of the unit but it means that you always need a DS (that is switched on which means battery cost). Understandably they didn't add much to the writer other then a controller for the USB plug but that does make it feel somewhat redundant.

Homebrew (.nds) can be booted and works flawlessly which is a good thing. Sadly there is no FATlib as of now so only the modified version of Moonshell is available (not source). I have however contacted the Express team about this (read above).

One thing I do feel I need to mention before closing up this review is that this is a flash kit. This means that it has a fixed size (my sample was 1 gigabytes). You can call it a pro or a con, it's preference really. Personally I like expandable memory however 1Gb is quite a lot. Of course by having a unit that never varies is a good thing when you develop firm/software. That means that if something works in one setup it will work with all others. Again it is purely preference.

Overall rating for the Express card slot-1 flashcart
Discription	Rating (out of 10)
Design Boxart, manual and product appeal	8-
Hardware Hardware design, durability and features	8-
Compatibility Overall Homebrew and NDS game (if applies) compatibility score	9-
Product future What this products future looks like	promising
Features (Built in) extra features of the NDS media (adapter) card	none

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

-Simon van de Berg

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