GBA - Finally gets a Light

A new Game Boy Advance called GBA-SP is launching this March in the U.S. by Nintendo...it's finally front-lit. It's like a tiny flip phone and smaller than the current GBA. It should have launced this way to start with. Here's the full story courtesy of IGN Pocket. Take the link for photos.

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January 06, 2003 - Nintendo today revealed a brand new version of the Game Boy Advance.

The unit, called the Game Boy Advance SP, will be a foldable version of the GBA that, most importantly, features a front-lit LCD screen that can be turned on and off during play. The GBA SP will be released in Japan on February 14th for 12,500 yen. The system will go on sale in the US this March 23rd, the two-year anniversary of the GBA system's Japanese release. The device will retail for $99 in the US, but it will not replace the current Game Boy Advance system.

The Game Boy Advance SP system will feature a rechargeable, replaceable battery pack that gives the GBA SP system approximately 10 hours playtime with the light on, 18 hours with the light off. The unit will be sold in two colors: Platinum and Cobalt. The unit can fully charge its battery in three hours through the AC adaptor.

The screen size and hardware are virtually identical to the current Game Boy Advance system. The unit will not have a headphone jack; Nintendo has created a special adapter for the GBA SP that plugs into the link port which enables users to plug in standard headphones. Sold seperately, of course.
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<a href="http://pocket.ign.com/articles/381/381613p1.html" target="_blank">IGN - Lit Game Boy Announcement</a>

I definitely don't think it will be too small...plus the whole front-lit feature is just too good to pass up. I barely buy games for my current GBA just because it's so damn hard to see the games on it in a normally lit room in my house. My current GBA will be most definitely traded for this thing when it drops. The chrome colored one is very choice looking.

The website Eurogamer put out first impressions of the new GBA...fret no more about thinking it will be too small...read on courtesy of Eurogamer:

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Judging by the reaction from the forums, most of you seem to have come to the conclusion that it’s too small for western hands. The SP is just wider than the screen of the original GBA, and exactly the same depth when closed. It really is pocket sized, so some of you will wonder how it feels in the hands of an adult. Fret not. Unless you've got hands the size of shovels, you should be perfectly comfortable with the new design. Firstly the D-pad design should cure that age-old problem of ending up with ridges carved into your left thumb. In typical Nintendo style, something that you think shouldn't work, actually works a treat, and you'll find your thumb glides across the new shallower D-pad – presumably making games that require quick quarter and half rotations in direction far more playable, and enjoyable (Street Fighter Alpha 3, for example?).

The distance between the D-pad and the two buttons has also concerned a few of you. While we only had twenty minutes or so to play about with it, and while it did feel a little too close together compared to what we're used to, it shouldn't cause any discomfort. The weeny shoulder buttons, however, are tiny compared to any other gaming device you'll have ever come across. They do have a solid, responsive feel to them, and a quick blast on Metroid Fusion confirmed that they're easy to use as long as you adopt a hand positioning with your index fingers permanently resting by them. We still hanker after the four-button design, though. Why, Ninty, why?
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Dennis...I wouldn't worry much about the comfort of holding this bad boy...here's a quote from GameSpot's site about there hands on experience with it. Of course nothing is gonna convince you guys it's comfortable till you hold it yourself. But here's another example that should qualm these fears. Courtesy of GameSpot:

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"Before actually getting our hands on the new console, our only concerns--based on the photos that we'd seen--were that it might not be as comfortable as the existing model and that the shoulder buttons could prove awkward to use. Our fears were soon put to rest, however, since the new handheld is every bit as comfortable to hold as a Game Boy Pocket or Game Boy Color, and it features shoulder buttons that, while much smaller than those on the GBA, are actually more comfortable to use. The directional pad and buttons have also been changed very slightly, and while they're practically flush with the surface of the console so as not to touch the screen when the flip-top is closed, they felt just as comfortable as those on previous Game Boy consoles, and we had no problems whatsoever playing with them."
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Clipped from this full article:
<a href="http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2908150,00.html" target="_blank">http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2908150,00.html</a>