I purchased a ds(new) last thurday and the touch screen already has a decent amount of scratches on it. I'll admit I have been playing with the stupid thing way too much(about 4 hours a day at work, then 1 or 2 at home) and about 1/3 of that time I've been playing wario ware(which I'm thinking is as nice to the touch screen as mario party was to 64 controllers). Even still, I've only been using the stylus that came with the unit and did not expect to see scratches so soon. While none of them are deep enough to really affect the picture quality, too many more of these surface scratches will likely make the image very distored. Is it normal for a ds to have scratches after roughly 40 hours of play? Also, could I use something similar to what you would use to polish a scratched monitor, or would that ruin the touchscreen?
You could always get a cover for the screen, what I use on my balckberry and PSP it protects the screen from scratchs etc..
I'm starting to think it's the damn dirt in the air at work(it is a landfill after all). Thought I wouldn't have any troubles since I only use it when I'm working inside, but I think I'm just getting too many little tiny peices of sand(too small to see with the naked eye) on the screen and the stylus is dragging little rocks across the screen. If I happen to last a few months longer(job is kind of in the air at the moment) I'll probably pick up another ds to use outside of work and let this one get slowly ruined by the clouds of dust rolling over this building. Never thought to get a screen guard. I had a psp for about 3 months and had it up here at work all the time(even played with it while sitting in a trunk oustide) ,but it never got any scratches. So I didn't plan on it being a problem with the ds.(damn you stylus!)
I'm really anal-retentive about dust on either of my DS screens, and I make sure to blow them off each time I start the system up, when the white background makes pieces of crap easier to see. I also keep one of those micro-fiber cloths (that you normally see sold for very expensive sunglasses) in my DS case that I wipe the screens down with. I've had my DS since launch, and only have one tiny, quarter-inch scratch that honestly appeared within a month of buying the system, when I got a speck of dirt under the stylus while playing Feel The Magic. My spine bristled at the faint, scratchy sound I imagined I could feel in my bones. The horror... I still have nightmares about it sometimes...
If you work at a landfill, you should be careful that the chemicals in the air don't breakdown the screen itself. Aside from that, the dust is what is causing the scratches. I too have been playing the hell out of Warioware (all items/levels unlocked, about a third gold crowns) with the default stylus, but I don't have any scratches.
You could get some of those PDA touch screen protectors, only cost about $10 per pack. I'm sure they'd work ok.
To be honest, it gets them no matter what you do. You can put some thick protector on with bubbles in it, or just live with it. There are cleaners to remove scratches from the screen on ebay.
If you get a pack of PDA-style screen protectors, you could most likely cut them in half and get twice the use out of them.
Use protection when playing with DS lest its screen get scratchy. I swear, if I hadn't put a screen protector on my DS, I would have cried. I'm actually about to put a new protector on my touch screen since my old one is used up. Damn you, Nintendogs and Animal Crossing! Though with a DS redesign coming out, I might just save my new screen protector...
Well I dont have a DS (and wont until Lite comes out) but i do have a ton of palm and other PDAs. The best way to clean the screen is with a barely mousturized tissue, then clean it from left to right, DONT DO CIRCLES! or you'll fuck up your screen. And yeah, sand in the air is a bitch, I went to a desert and one PDA screen actually got cutted by a piece of quartz sand. You cant fix the scratchs you got no, but a screen cover is a must if you dont want to fuck the system forever. BTW, if I were you I'll quit that job. Polluted air may get you cancer...
Besides the dust the air quality isn't too bad around here. We do handle some "special waste", but nothing to deadly. Hopefully I can make it 13 years(2 down so far) and get some partial retirement coming in(if they don't fire my lazy ass before then). I'm thinking of trying to exchange the ds at the walmart where I bought it. It's only been 10 days or so, so hopefully I won't have a problem. Still trying to decide what to tell them the problem is, maybe say that the top screen goes black after 45min of play? I noticed some pda screen protectors at walmart when I got the ds, just wasn't sure if they would make the touch screen less sensitive(got no idea how they work). When I get a new one(hopefully), I'll be sure to pick one up. If I can't get an exchange I'll go ahead and pick up a ds lite when they come out and use it when I"m not at work, and continue using this one untill the screen is worthless. Hey Assembler, these cleaners you speak of, do they work pretty good?
I love to let kids play mine. A) Its fun for them B) They stay outta my hair I dont know if I enjoy playing it or watching people play it more. It is a toy after all.
They wont, but if you buy the el-cheapo kind you may experience some blurryness, but that all... About the air, I warn you that small doses of toxic wont kill you now but 20 or 30 years from now you may develop cancer or other diseases.
Open it up and pull a wire, then tell them it stopped working. They might try to give you some snap, just yell at'em. They're used to it, working at (ugh) Walmart. Don't take no for an answer, make the bastards give you another one. Walmart can afford it. The protector shouldn't interfere with the touch screen at all. Not sure exactly how it works, but there's some kind of sensor grid above the actual screen that dectects the stylus or finger or whatever. On old school/cheap touch screens (like say on a Game.com) you can actually see the grid on the screen.
Carefully take off the little square sticker in the battery compartment (so that you can reaffix it) and half flash the bios (i.e. brick it) and take it back. No evidence... :evil:
I went to Walmart today and exchanged it for another one, and it was actually much less of a hassle then I had expected. I just told them that the top screen shuts off after 20 min or so and they just handed me a new one :dance: But, the new ds had a dead pixel on the top screen. Luckily they let me exchange that one for a perfect unit. As far as the air quality at the landfill goes, I'm really not too worried about it. There is a small chance I could develop respiratory problems later in life just from breathing in dust every day, but like I said besides the dust and the smell of old trash the air quality isn't too bad. I also make sure to wear a breather mask whenever the wind kicks up or if I'm working in certain areas(the compost site is one area I always wear a mask while working in. I'm sure the mold growing on a huge pile of grass can't be good for you.) If there were any other jobs in this town that paid good I would jump on those, but the only other options I've really got are working at mcdonalds or working in a painting/sign/metal work/wood work factory(which besides mcdonalds would probably be worse on my health and I would actually have to bust my ass instead of playing sonic rush).
