Nintendo, bless ‘em, have finally got around to announcing a European launch date for the DSi. That’s April 3rd which, we’re delighted to report, is two days in advance of the Stateside launch. Alas, here’s no sign of a confirmed price. Hey, what do you want - all the relevant info in one place at the same time? Don’t be silly!

However the Timesonline website reckons to have knowledge of the UK rrp - £149, which, annoyingly, is around £30 more expensive than the US launch price. Fingers crossed that Nintendo Europe does the right thing on this point.

So, exchange rate grumbles aside, what are you getting for your money? Well, the DSi is certainly an improvement on the DS Lite, boasting bigger, brighter twin-screens, 256MB of Flash memory, an SD card slot, a pair of 0.3MP cameras and built-in software to muck about with the low-res pictures you take. There’s a music player too, and users will be able to connect to a dedicated DSi Shop and download the playable goodies contained therein.

On the downside the DSi has ditched the GBA port, the music player doesn’t support MP3, we’re only getting a choice of two colourways (black and white) and the DSi Shop software is region-locked, meaning you’ll have to look on in envy as Japan gets all the great games months ahead of us.

If you can live with all that, though, the DSi is a tidy little package. We’ll certainly be having one…