R4 & R4i – Where is it Safe to Buy?
Buying a quality R4 DS has become notoriously difficult with so many imitations on the market along with units being made at varying qualities depending on which factory produced them. With no trusted, well known companies selling them, it’s a matter of luck for most whether or not they get a working unit or one that refuses to start up.
To make the task of getting a good R4 DS easier, we have compiled a table based on customer satisfaction of the leading UK sellers of R4 products. If you want to be sure you don’t buy a dud R4, check the customer satisfaction comparison table before buying.
| R4 & R4i Retailer Customer Satisfaction Survey | |||||
| Store (click below to visit store) | Amazon Marketplace | Dooyoo | Price Grabber | Price Runner | Review Center |
| Memory Card Zoo | 97% | - | 4.85/5 | - | 7.7/10 |
| My Memory | 94% | 4.0/5 | - | - | 3.9/10 |
| r4ds.co.uk, r4i.co.uk, Memory Bits | - | 2.0/5 | 4.65/5 | 2.8/5 | - |
| nintendodsr4.co.uk | - | - | - | - | - |
| stuff4dsi.co.uk | - | - | - | - | - |
| r4cardz.co.uk | - | - | - | - | - |
| allcards4u.com | - | - | - | - | - |
| stuffs2play.com | - | - | - | - | - |
| buylay.com | - | - | - | - | - |
| ds-cards.com | - | - | - | - | - |
| Flash-Gadget.co.uk | - | - | - | - | - |
| bycardshop.com | - | - | - | - | - |
| r4gift.com | - | - | - | - | - |
You can see that there are a lot of blank spaces on in the table. This really demonstrates the lack of information available on the people selling R4s. Only three of those surveyed have any customer feedback on independent websites which collect and provide consumer satisfaction information.
You can click on the scores to read what customers are saying about the stores which can often give you a better idea than the stats alone. For example, I have seen a lot of people rating a company just on the quality of their website, before they have even received their order. It might be quicker though to read our overview of R4 Revolution store reviews.
I hope this has been useful for you. Leave a comment and let me know.
Why You Need an R4 DS
For under £25, the R4 DS Revolution allows your Nintendo DS or DSi to:
* Play free R4 Nintendo DS homebrew games
* Run free R4 homebrew applications
* Be used as a PDA
* mp3 Player
* Video Player
* Web Browser
* Word Processor
* And even a Mobile Phone!
Fantastically helpful, answered all my questions as a complete beginner, thanks very much!
Thanks Liz. It’s great to hear that it’s been useful for someone.
How many games can you save on the card? KX
eBay is safe to buy
@Pete
lol
can the r4i fit inside the pc slot where the sd cards go? if not i’m looking for a 4gb r4i card and i have a 1gb sd card will the 4gb micro sd card work in it?
pretty accurate article!
however memory card zoo may be the highest rated, but not necessarily the cheapest. the cheapest R4 card i’ve seen was for £7.95
to answer your question dan,
the type of card used with an R4 is MicroSD, you can buy adaptors to make it fit in your SD card slot – look for a MicroSD to SD adaptor.
no, they can’t.
also a lot of places will ship the R4 with a USB adaptor anyway so don’t worry just check that the place you buy from include that in the pack.
Thanks Phil.
You’re right memory card zoo aren’t the cheapest and if you hunt around you can find them very cheap. Personally I wouldn’t advise this though because, as you can see from the chart, a lot of people are unhappy with some sellers of cheap R4 and R4i cards. With a DS card, you usually get what you pay for.
I hope that one day I will be able to order from all the store to rate the quality of their cards but for now the customer feedback chart is all I’ve got to go on (and maybe how they deal with returns because, I know some DS Lites will work with and R4 card but the exact same card won’t work in other DS Lites).