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I'm very supprised no one has mentioned the m3simply yet. I got mine a few weeks back and it's been awesome. It plays clean NDS roms (unmodified exact copies), runs homebrew, and plays music and movies (needs transcoding) right out of the box. It takes microSD cards and comes with a microSD-usb reader/writer. You can find the microSD chips and the m3simply's online for about the price of two NDS games - not bad. You can then download all 872 games (and counting). The best part is you can play all the wifi games over the internet and locally. You can also check out the compatibility list and this comparison chart.

Happy homebrewing :)

I did some research into "homebrew" this week and ordered a M3 Perfect Simply for $45 (came to about $62 with shipping). It's a slot-1 cartridge (same slot that uses DS games). You insert a Micro SD flash card into the cartridge and off you go. It plays ROMs perfectly, without any need for conversion. Savegames are saved to the flash card. Its only downside is that it doesn't play GBA ROMs, which I didn't really care about.

My second choice was the R4, which is basically the same thing - slot-1 cartridge with flash card - but didn't look like as good for some reason (it might be, for all I know).

If you want GBA ROM support, you're looking at a slot-2 cartridge. They're generally more expensive and many (all?) need a booting card in slot-1. Bundles are available.

As far as homebrew goes, the M3 Simply plays videos and mp3s straight out of the box. It has a skinnable shell. There are applications that will turn your DS into a PDA or telephone, but I'm not sure if they work with the M3 - maybe someone here knows more on this subject.

Try to avoid homebrew solutions that require you to flash your DS bios. It voids your warranty.

Some links:

M3 website: http://www.m3adapter.com/
R4DS website: http://r4ds.net/
Review of some common methods for homebrew: http://www.metku.net/index.html?path=articles/nds/ index_eng
Store: http://bamboogaming.com/
Store: http://divineo.com/

You don't need 10 things hanging off it, or 2. The information in TFA was obsolete. Old DS passkeys were huge, and required a DS cartridge plugged into them. New DS passkeys are the same size as a normal DS cartridge, and they don't even need to flash your DS. I use a Max Media Launcher that I got for like $20. Works perfectly, didn't need to flash my DS Lite. Max Media Launcher

You need a GBA flash cart. These are available in various flavors. Mine is the SD version of the M3. I chose M3 because it has removable memory, good reviews and compatibility (haven't found anything yet that it won't run), and I chose SD because it is common, cheap, and smaller than CF. There are also CF and mini-SD versions of M3. M3 Adapter Home

The M3 SD does protrude a tiny bit from my DS Lite. However, there are brand new products (G6 Lite, as well as DS Xtreme) that eliminate any protrusion at all, with the tradeoff that the storage capacity is relatively limited and memory is not removable.

I should add that I didn't have any problem getting my equipment to work perfectly. IMHO the only problem when getting into NDS homebrew, which hopefully shouldn't be a problem for most people here, is sifting through the blind-leading-the-blind dumbass tutorials such as the one in TFA (which abound due to NDS's capability of playing pirate ROMs) and finding truly helpful info.

Just get the M3 player. LOTS of features and excellent compatibility.

http://www.m3adapter.com/

It has its own wiki too

http://m3wiki.com/

m3adapter uses an SD-Mini cards, has a built in NES/GB emulator, plays movies and home-brew games.

http://m3adapter.com/
http://www.winsunx.com/list.php?mod=671

you need passkey 2 to boot on the DS, but it's all for about the same price as this GB2X thing.

M3 was here btw: m3adapter.

It is just a GBA title. On the DS it still works, but at GBA resolution (Which is a lower than the DS).

None of this matters for music of course, but for video it does.

The restriction comes from this using the GBA socket. It has to, really, since the DS socket is so tiny. But because it uses the GBA socket, it has to stay in GBA mode. The DS is very strict about that, and it requires hacked firmware, or a PassMe (goes into DS socket, plug DS game into passme, passme redirects DS execution to GBA slot).

The M3 uses a passme-type device. Despite the fact that the M3 uses the GBA slot and works on GBA, thanks to the hardware hack it is also able to run in DS mode at native res.

The M3's site can be found at http://www.m3adapter.com/

Of course, the M3 isn't out yet, and I have a GBA, so the added bulk and probably added cost isn't really worth it for me.