Well… my Nintendo DSi arrived back yesterday.  I unboxed it and turned it on, and upon first inspection, I was quite pleased.  Both screens seem devoid of any pixel troubles.  Also, they fixed another problem I had, which I believe a lot of the launch DSi’s had, where you can see a bit of light shining through off to the left of the left edge of the bottom screen.  According to the little slip of paper that I got back with my system, the repair was valued at $75.00.

I quickly noticed, though, that my bottom screen seemed very blue.  It seems that they replaced the bottom screen with one that is either not calibrated properly or just plain bad.  It has a blueish tint to it that is very noticeable, especially if whatever being displayed is bright.

Here, I tried to photograph it.  You can notice the bluish hue to the background of the bottom screen.

Yeah, maybe it wouldn’t bother some people.  It bothers me, though, more than the stuck pixel.  And if I’m going to pay $170 for a handheld game system, shouldn’t it at least have a good display?

So, that’s disappointing.  I called Nintendo this afternoon and explained the problem to a representative, who was very nice and set me up to send the DSi back for service again.

While I am disappointed that my DSi came back with a more distracting problem than the one I sent it off for, I have not been disappointed in the service.  The repair was completed promptly — they shipped the DSi back to me the day after they received it.  Also, when I called in today, I didn’t have to wait on hold to speak to anyone; I was connected as soon as I finished picking the options in the phone tree that indicated I wanted DSi support.  And the representative didn’t give me any grief along the lines of “It’s normal for the screens to look a little different, you know.”  So, no problem with the service, whoever replaced the screen just thought I wouldn’t mind so much if it was… blue.  (Or just plain didn’t notice.)

Hopefully, everything will go right this time.

Update: After about two weeks, I received my DSi back again.  This time, they seem to have replaced the entire unit with a new one.  However, the screens are both great, all of my DSiWare and saved data is here, so, I’m a happy camper!

This may be new, or it may have been there since I got my DSi a couple of months ago.  It’s hard to notice unless the background is very dark.  But once I noticed it the first time, now I’m always looking for it…

Would you believe that Nintendo is offering to fix it under warranty?  Or at least, “inspect and repair if necessary.”

I’m shipping it off to them tomorrow, we’ll see how it goes.

Follow-up: Nintendo DSi – Stuck Pixel, Part 2: What’d they do to my screen? (August 13th, 2009)