Sorry to burst your bubble, but reality has to come into play: in theory the system would be an ideal way to browse the web, but in practice it's an absolute nightmare.
The product screams "contractual obligation." While we'll never officially know the deal that happened behind the scenes between Nintendo and Opera, we can make an educated guess that the product spawned out of both companies' desires to get a Wii browser working, and the DS was part of the contract. The Wii version of the browser is something for Opera to be proud of. The Nintendo DS version, however, will probably be swept under the carpet like it never happened.
At least getting online is a snap. Since the browser uses the same "plug and play" Wi-Fi settings as every other Wi-Fi Connection-enhanced DS game, as long as your DS has been configured for a hotspot in a previous title (or in a DS-enabled hotspot like McDonalds) you're all set to go. If not, you'll need to be in a hotspot with a password if necessary, or be in range of a Nintendo USB Wi-Fi adapter. You'll also need to plug in the extra DS Lite cartridge into the GBA slot, presumably for additional memory that web browsing needs.
Incidentally, this cartridge is the element that makes the retail version of the browser incompatible with the original Nintendo DS system since it won't fit. For those with the larger system you can get the cartridge from Nintendo's online store.
Once online, however, the torture begins. No matter how fast your broadband connection is, the DS Browser craaaaaaaaaaaaaaawls along like you were on an old elementary school library computer. Probably worse than that. Simpler, text-heavy websites like Google's search engine do better than, say, CNN's news site, but overall think of the slowest web browsing experience you've ever had and multiply it by a billion. That's a good indication of what to expect on the Nintendo DS.
It's compatible with plenty of sites, so if you tend to post at LiveJournal or message boards you have the ability to do that with the Nintendo DS Browser. But sites will tend to break, text snapping out of the templates laid out for the PC and Mac browsers. Many sites just won't work at all - in this world of Web 2.0 where Flash and JavaScript heavy pages are the norm, the Nintendo DS Browser is tremendously outdated and just not capable of bringing the current browser experience. Forget about surfing YouTube, MySpace, and Homestarrunner.com on the handheld.
The browser is not image friendly and it's clear that's where 90 percent of the problem lies. To speed up web browsing, Nintendo and Opera recommend disabling images. Of course, for more than 10 years web browsing has been a visual experience, so their solution pretty much destroys the whole point of hitting the internet to begin with. The browser renders JPG as well as static and animated GIFs just fine, but they take forever to load on the system…even if they're in the "small" range for normal PC browsing.
We will give Opera a thumbs up on making an intuitive interface on the DS. Handwriting recognition is in place where you can spell out URLs by doodling each letter in text boxes a la Brain Age, but honestly the QWERTY keyboard is the better bet. You can have a full view on top with a zoomed view of a page on the bottom, or vice versa using the "swap" function. And you can say "screw the layout!" and pull up a faster full column mode that removes any sort of page structure - most sites will look broken if you do this, but at least you'll get the content more quickly.
But it's the experience that kills this product. The lack of any current web features - no Flash, video, audio - on top of the painfully long loadtimes makes this an absolute waste of 35 bucks, and it's no surprise that Nintendo of America decided to quietly release the product with very little fanfare. The DS browser isn't even a decent compromise for when you don't have a laptop handy.