As soon as I got home with my new Nintendo DSi, I plopped down on the floor next to my dog, flipped it open and made a beeline straight to camera mode.

Viola! There I was, looking much surprised as I stared back at myself from the portable’s screen. Welcome to the two-way camera. With the press of an on-screen button, you can train your sight on whatever’s in front of you, or right back at you.

And for a good part of an hour, the camera’s cutesy and hilarious editing mode kept me enthralled.

The camera wasn’t designed to be a high-quality replacement for a stand-alone snapper, but a resolution of 0.3 megapixels is more than enough to get the job done for some serious goofing off with the “interactive” lenses.

The distortion lens is by far the coolest. Imagine a funhouse mirror you can manipulate with the stylus. Just touch and drag the image to give your friends chubby cheeks, eggheads or whatever odd shapes your mind can conjure. There’s also a graffiti mode that lets you draw on or stamp pics with preset patterns; and color modes that add dabs of color to black-and-white photos or change colors.

Mirror mode does exactly as promised, adding effects that can turn a person’s face into a symmetrical oddity or create a kaleidoscope image that turns with a touch. Other modes add graphics, like pig snouts and mustaches, or scrunch faces into funny expressions — or combine two faces into one.

There’s space for more than 400 pictures in the DSi’s memory, but for added storage — and for transfer to a computer — there’s a slot for an SD memory card.

The audio editor is just as amusing a time waster as the camera, letting you record sounds and voices and run them through preset filters — like an electric fan or parakeet — play it backward, and adjust the pitch and speed. It’s a blast for annoying people on the phone!

Besides using the built-in wireless to share photos and play multiplayer games, you can connect to the DSi shop and surf the Web. For a limited time, Nintendo is offering 1,000 free Wii Points to spend on its catalog of downloadable titles — albeit, it’s a very small library right now.

The DSi Browser — downloadable from the Shop — is pretty disappointing, though. The version of Opera it runs doesn’t support Flash, and there were issues with insufficient memory when I tried to go to YouTube, Facebook or check my e-mail.

But as a game system, the screens are bigger and brighter than the previous DS Lite’s. Resolution hasn’t gotten any better, though, nor has the screens’ glare been reduced.

If you already have the DS Lite, it would be hard to justify adding the DSi to your collection, except that it’s so much fun. Deciding between the DS Lite and DSi, however — the camera, audio and shop features justify shelling out the $40 extra for the DSi.

Additional Information:

Nintendo DSi

Grade: A-

Colors : Blue and black

Retail : $169.99

Additional Information:

In the Shop

Available to download from the DSi Shop:

• Nintendo DSi Browser (0 Points): Opera-powered browser with two-screen interface.

• ?Bird & Beans• (200 Points, rated E, 1 player): You play as the small bird Pyoro as you collect beans falling from the sky with its elastic tongue.

• ?Master of Illusion Express: Funny Face• (200 Points, rated E, 1 player): Use your DSi as a prop for a card trick. A face you draw will tell your friends what card they?ve drawn.

• ?Art Style: AQUIA• (500 Points, rated E, 1 player): Match and clear blocks to help a scuba diver reach the ocean?s floor.

• ?WarioWare: Snapped• (500 Points, rated E, 1-2 players): Mini-games starring Wario and you • with a picture you?ve taken of yourself with your DSi.

• ?Brain Age Express: Math• (800 Points, rated E, 1 player): Math-based games include Change Maker, Triangle Math, Sum Totaled and Multi Tasker, plus Virus Buster and modes that include drawing, voice acting and photography.

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