The R4 SDHC Card For the Nintendo DS Console

Nintendo DS cartridges, as well as their newer counterparts the DSi cards that are compatible with the newer Nintendo DSi and DSi consoles, enable users to expand on their handheld console experience. Not only can they play games as before, but are able to perform a host of other activities including converting their Nintendo DS console into an MP3 player, movie viewer, or even a PDF and office document reader!

The R4 SDHC card was the first card ever to accept memory greater than 2GB. It could accept higher high capacity (HC) memory cards, hence the name R4 SDHC. It is now an established norm that cards accept high memory capacities, but the R4 SDHC was the card that started the trend. At the time, 8GB Micro-SDHC cards were just beginning to emerge on the market and the amount of users that flooded to the R4 SDHC to take advantage of this made it a real contender for the fastest selling DS card at the time, alongside the original R4v2 and the DSTT card. The only obvious downside to the R4 SDHC card was that because of the increased memory capacity, loading times on the card were approximately 6 to 8 seconds, much slower than the 2 to 3 seconds often seen on the R4v2 and the DSTT.

Recently, at the beginning of June in 2010, the R4 SDHC team released a brand new iteration of the card, dubbed the 2.10T version. The card initially confused some of the public because the packaging changed to a gold colour not unlike the infamous clone “R4i Gold” card. The wording on the card was also deliberately changed from “R4 Revolution” to “R4 Renovation”. The reason for these changes was that the architecture of the card itself was completely re-done so the team wanted to distinguish the old black box from the new one as much as possible.

Loading times on the card were slashed to an impressive 3-4 seconds and the card itself is made of a stronger, slightly lighter plastic with components rearranged to give the card even more mechanical stability. The interface was also changed to closely mimic the official R4i SDHC (the sister card of the R4 SDHC that is compatible on newer Nintendo DSi and DSi XL consoles). The functionality of the card itself has remained the same, but the software is now compatible with newer applications and games in addition to being faster.

In summary, the newest addition to the R4 family is a very welcome one indeed. With so many newer Nintendo DSi and DSi XL compatible cards coming out, support for many of the older, regular DS cards has declined or even ceased to exist. For example, the EZFlash IV, R4v2 and the DSTT all no longer have software updates being released for them. With these reasons in mind, the new R4 SDHC card is a great reminder that the R4 SDHC team want to capitalise on this and secure the DS / DS Lite market amongst consumers who have yet to buy (or are not considering) the Nintendo DSi.

Leave a Reply