The biggest change to Nintendo's handheld platform is the addition of 3D without the need for glasses. Only the upper screen will be used to display 3D visuals. The bottom touch screen was tested for use as a 3D panel, but was ultimately decided against as the touch interactivity of the screen led to smudges that interfered with the 3D visuals. Depending on the game, some of the visuals do pop out of the screen and there's a lot of depth to the point where you're tempted to reach into the game. However, this effect only works if you're staring at the right angle, otherwise it will look blurry.

Nintendo increased the size and resolution of the upper screen to 3.53 inches and, according to the official data sheet, the resolution of it is 800x240. If the resolution sounds odd, that's because it is. According to Nintendo, "400 pixels are allocated for each eye to enable 3D viewing." Nintendo didn't say much to explain the statement, but we speculate that there actually two screens residing in the same spot, each visible at particular angles. As a result, each eye only sees 400 pixels of width, doubling that gives us 800 pixels. The actual effective resolution would be 400x240, which also gives a more useful aspect ratio of 1.66 putting it between the standard 16:9 and 16:10 aspects. The 3.02 inch touch screen on the bottom half received a bump up in resolution to 320x240 from the 256x192 LCD screen that's present on all current Nintendo DS models.