www.bbc.co.uk
One of the net's best sites, the BBC page looks great, loads quickly and is only missing its multimedia features. Perhaps the best page to use when showing off your new DS Browser to your friends. If they live in England or just really like watching BBC, anyway.
Speed: 4/5
Ease of use: 5/5
Display: 5/5
Functionality: 3/5
www.streetmap.com
This works extremely well. Punch in the postcode or address line of the place you want to see, then you can use a zoomed-out view to pick an area you want magnified on the top screen. Superb.
Speed: 3/5
Ease of use: 5/5
Display: 5/5
Functionality: 5/5
Above: The browser comes on a DS card but also comes with extra memory, which you insert into the GBA game slot. Clever.
So DS browser does work. Having a touch-screen keyboard makes it quicker than PSP's browser to get what you want and the display systems work really well. On the not-so-great side, speed is a real problem, Flash omission is a letdown and the handwriting recognition isn't perfect.
If you have a DS and travel a lot, using a hotspot to plan your next journey with Streetmap is a genuine possibility. But for everyday browsing, a PC is a much better solution. Unfortunately, the DS browser is not expected to reach the US until December, 2006.
