A lot of people are skeptical towards the R4i / R4 card for Nintendo DS. I've seen countless posts asking about the R4i SDHC / R4 SDHC flash cards, and whether they legitimately work or not. When it comes to electronics that come from China, people are generally skeptical towards them. It's natural, of course. In this article, I will try to explain what R4i / R4 cards are, and attempt to disprove some rumours about them that have been going around on the web.

A DS R4 / R4i card is a storage device that allows users to store and view data such as JPGs, documents, videos, audio files or homebrew games. The R4 / R4i card circumvents the encryption on the Nintendo DS, allowing files to be run straight from a storage medium such as a Micro SD card. Second generation flash cards such as the R4 / R4i utilize the DS game card slot (SLOT-1), instead of the GBA game card slot (SLOT-2), making them easier to use.

In a nutshell, the R4 / R4i is just a card which enables you to run multimedia files or game files on your DS. No hacking is required; it is strictly a 'soft mod' that does not affect your NDS in any way. You just push the R4i / R4 card into the DS game slot, and the R4 / R4i software will run.

Now, a lot of people ask why there are so many different types of the R4 / R4i flash card out there. This happens because there are many producers out there who make duplicates of the original R4 SDHC card. A large number of these cards, especially the ones that provide links to Taiwanese websites may break your DS. Make sure to always look around online before buying your R4 / R4i card.

Does the R4i or R4 actually work?