Double posting because I got one! Build quality seems to be quite a bit better than the old XL, and the finish is really nice - I got a black one and it's more of a gunmetal/charcoal gray with a carbon fiber pattern. The first time I tried the super-stable 3D in the store, it didn't seem to work, but I tried it again a few days later and my eyes adjusted to it. It's so much better than the 3D on the old 3DS, and I'm actually playing with the 3D on now. C-stick works okay, but it's not a game changer or anything, and I don't see stuff like dual stick shooters working well on it. It's a camera control stick and that's probably about all it'll be capable of being. Stylus sucks horribly though since it's a bit shorter than the 3DS XL's stylus and hard to pull out, and I'm not a fan of the card slot/stylus/power button placement. But overall it seems like a substantial improvement and I was enjoying playing Majora on it last night.
Doesn't sound like we're getting the 'real' New 3DS here. I can't be bothered to find the interview right now, but some guy at NoA said they couldn't figure out how to market it. Their angle right now is 2DS low-end, 3DS mid-tier (wtf, is the original even still available? ), and New XL as pro-level. Makes no sense to me. I want my comfortable sized face-tracking fancy backplate-sporting New 3DS, Nintendo :(
I actually don't mind the XL. I'm used to the size since I had an XL before anyway, and the IPS screen panel in the n3DS XL is a huuuuuge improvement in quality and viewing angles from the old 3DS. The normal n3DS has a TN panel, from the comparisons I've seen, which has worse colors/viewing angles.
There's been reports of the XL being sold with both IPS and TN screens, even though it's the same model. Don't know what you're getting till you open the box and compare. I'm assuming the normal one is the same
From the reports I've seen, the majority of XLs have IPS while the majority of regular n3DS have TN. I think there are some exceptions, but that's the general trend.
