I'm planning on getting a white DS Lite soon, but these reports of the hinge breaking off worry me. They only seem to occur on white DS Lites. How common is this problem? Did Nintendo fix the issue, supposedly caused by over-tightening in the manufacturing process?

I've heard of this popping up every so often at work, but it's invariably:

*ring*
"Hi, my 5 year old son/daughter has broken his gameboy touchy - is there anything you can do for where the top picture bit goes onto the bottom picture bit?"

The DS's, lite and old school seem to stand up to quite a bit of abuse as long asthey're in the hands of someone with at least marginal respect for property.

I got a White Lite had it since launch, it's still perfectly fine.

I have a Navy Blue. Has been cracked for over 6 months and it's perfectly fine. It's only a cosmetic thing. The crack's gotten no bigger at all.

I haven't heard of these problems... My DS Lite's fine, I've had it for a while now, but I haven't dropped it or anything.

From my experience, Nintendo's hardware's usually tough as nails. One time when I took my old brick DS (which I sold when I got my DS Lite) to a friend's place, his little brother came up and hit it out of my hand. It slammed on the hardwood floor with quite a bit of force, but wasn't hurt at all, didn't even turn off or anything. That was a brick DS, though, not a Lite.

Also, I saw a video of a stress test for a DS Lite one time, it took a pretty heavy beating. On a second look, it was an LCD screen stress test, so they didn't try dropping it or anything, but you can have a look here.

Wow he really gives it a go doesnt he, that thing is sturdy as. :o

I've a white model too and so far no problems in 7 months...

Another white DS Lite model, a year later and still in perfect condition despite frequent use

I too have the white model and like the others here, no problems. Granted, I don't use it anywhere near as much as the rest of you lot do (I need more games to be able to do that!) but even so there is no hinge crack or any other flaws on my DS. :D

As I've said, hinge crack isn't an issue. My DS has had it since at least December, yet it's still fine. It gets everyday usage too, so it's not like it's untouched.