When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of portable gaming. When Nintendo released the Nintendo DS, I was enthusiastic enough that I actually imported one from Japan to Sweden, just to get my hands on it sooner (RIP lik-sang.com). I still remember the excitement of unboxing it and having my mind blown that I could play Mario 64 on a handheld device.
Later, Nintendo announced the DSi and DSi XL, which featured improved and larger screens. I could never quite justify upgrading my original DS, and the DSi XL became one of those consoles that I always wanted but never got around to buying.
Fast forward to a few months ago, it turns out Bergsala (basically Nintendo Sweden) was selling out 15 year old surplus stock of new sealed DSi and DSi XL consoles. I jumped at the chance to finally own one, and I picked up a DSi XL in what I thought would be pristine condition.
Unfortunately, when I powered it on, I quickly noticed that the bottom screen had a noticeable yellow tint. This was disappointing, but I remembered reading about a recent experiment on GBATemp where someone left a yellowed DS screen on for an extended period of time displaying a pure white image, and the yellowing improved significantly. Inspired by this, I decided to try the same experiment myself.
To be honest, my first reaction was skepticism. The results in the post looked almost too good to be true, and I half-expected them to be exaggerated or only applicable to some specific cases. But I figured it was worth a shot, and it wouldn’t hurt to try. The alternative was to open up the console and try to replace the screen, which seemed like a lot more effort.
I set up the DSi XL to display a pure white image on the bottom screen bu using a simple homebrew application, DS LCD Tester. Plugged my DSi XL into a charger, set a reminder in my calendar and left it in a drawer for the next 100 days.
After 100 days, I had almost forgotten about the experiment. But to my surprise, when I checked the screen, the yellow tint was basically gone!
The screen was still not quite perfect. There is still a small yellow tint in the top right of the bottom screen. But the improvement was far better than I had expected! And I’m not sure if I would have even noticed it if I hadn’t been looking for it.
The difference is even more striking in person. The yellowing has reduced to a point where it’s only really visible in the top right corner of the screen, and even then I’m not sure I would actually notice it if I hadn’t been specifically looking for it on a pure white screen.