This is my third DSL. I love these things. It's the most I've spent on a busted one so far, at $30. The last one I bought was 12, and the one before that was 5. All this one needed though was a new shell and a digitizer. Both screens are in excellent condition. The shell was very yellowed and busted.
Anyway, I had just learned recently that eXtremerate made DSL shells, and I decided I needed to try one out. I am a huge fan of the Switch Lite shell I have from them, it feels nearly OEM.
The DSL shell, not so much. The plastic is pretty soft. That's kind of nice, since I have had issues with previous aftermarket DS shells cracking. The bottom screen bezel is molded in, which I also like. It's hard to get the adhesive ones off without ruining the digitizer. The upper shell does not have the dual square DS logo molded into the top, which is also appreciated. The fit is also very good. No unexpected warping, everything fit together fine.
But the plastic is so soft.. I'm afraid it is going to scratch very easily. Plus, it's painted. I thought it would be gray plastic with some UV printed logos, but it is white plastic painted gray with UV logos. Sort of disappointing. If I ever re-shell it again, I'll get one of their transparent ones. But yeah, probably the best aftermarket DS shell I've seen so far, overall.
Did you know there's a decent DOS emulator for the DS? You aren't going to be playing Doom, but you can play Oregon Trail! Or Jetpack! And lots of other earlier stuff. Bind the buttons to keys, use the stylus for mouse input.
Oh, it definitely takes a lot of patience. But I love it, the whole process is therapeutic. I love the precision of it.
I feel you. I felt that way doing some soldering for things like fixing my trackball (bad left mouse button replacement) and my microwave (blown thyristor, easy fix).
I’m just not really good with small stuff and delicate parts like ribbon cable and thin wires. My eyes are old (hello presbyopia), and my hands were never the steadiest, even when I was younger.
What trackball? I've been keeping my T-BB18 going for 20 years now, and it's to the point I have to start 3D printing replacement parts for the rubber stuff that's turning to goo.
It's an Elecom Huge wired model. I've owned three, had two fail on me, both to left click double clicking on single touch. First time could have been a fluke and I replaced it, but the second failed inside of four months. I said hell with it, took it apart, desoldered the switch and replaced it with a Kailh GM2.0. Worked like a charm and it's been fine since.
Ironically, my oldest Huge is still working fine. Apparently they were originally using Japanese Omron microswitches that were quality and seem to last forever (case in point, the oldest trackball is from 2019 and no issues). With the newer ones I bought, they apparently changed to using Chinese Omron switches of poor quality.
Sucks, but I have a few spare Kailhs laying around if any of the other buttons die now.
That is a big, beautiful beast! Wow. It's ingrained in me that the trackball is for the thumb, so I'm not sure I could use it. But I am impressed by that behemoth.
I started with a Logitech Marble Mouse back in the day, thumb-balls were never really my thing.
Ah, Logitech T-BB13 for me. My grandpa had the marble, it felt weird to me.