Screen size and design is definitely a matter of taste

I got my 3DS XL now for more than my year and I must say that I am really quite satisfied with the device itself.
The games selection for 3DS family is now simply bombastic (Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Pokemon X / Y, Bravely Default, Fire Emblem Awakening - to mention just a couple of times a few titles for which alone the purchase themselves justification .)

However bothered me during the last few months, the low resolution of the display increasingly more - last so much that I hardly use the 3DS XL to play.
Especially with text-heavy games like RPGs (which I very often games), falls the low pixel density, the 400 x 240 pixel is 4.88 inch screen size due to the (compared with the standard 3DS unchanged), clearly negative on.

All textures - and particularly text - seen on the 3DS XL from noticeably blurry. Even if one does not respect it, you can see every single pixel in games where there is little movement on the screen.

There are of course people who thus have fewer problems and people who interfere more in such things - I personally am now though so spoiled by the much higher resolution of the PS Vita, the 3DS XL feels like an inferior product.

However, not only in terms of screen quality of the 3DS XL cuts to both the PS Vita, as well as the standard 3DS underperformed.
While the design of the standard 3DS much more concise, and more noble (to put it in a word, in which everyone understands immediately what is meant :) looks expensive, affects the 3DS XL as soon as it pops up due to the cheap black plastic a little as if you want to save at Nintendo of material costs.

Again, there will again be Menschn who thus have fewer problems and especially children should be interested in the little. But for anyone looking for a stylish design and a higher pixel density value in a handheld, the 3DS standard is definitely the better choice, even if the battery life when 3DS XL was minimally improved.