GCW Zero - Open Source Gaming Handheld


Thanks gcw, that settles it I guess. Shame about the touchscreen :(


I guess the nub will come in handy for mousing around.
 
The Oled screen is bad because it's really expensive and also have a bad lifespan (have three wiz with bad screen) and please replace the mini usb by a micro usb!!
 
A couple questions have been asked about the console...


3. What will be the default keys to get to sub menu of emulators and apps?


The default keys will be select+start
OK, thanks Justin. I'm still thinking L + Start would be an easier, more natural movement using both hands as they are usually positioned during gameplay(no right hand wrist twisting to press both Select + Start), but your way is alright. B)
 
The Start and select are on front at bottom of right side of console how does that cause twisting on the hand? for most part start+select has always been for accessing sub menus. As for micro usb hard to source and not as cheap as mini usb and mini usb is still somewhat the standard for devices.
 
And I've found mini-USB to be a loss less reliable. Yes, micro-USB is better on paper, but of the two micro-USB devices I have, both now require careful placement of the cable to charge. My dozen or so mini-USB devices are still show no sign of a dodgy connector (my dingoo is falling to bits and almost every part of it has a problem, except for the USB connector.)
 
Agreed, micro-USB is not secure enough and easily gets physically diconnected.

The Oled screen is bad because it's really expensive and also have a bad lifespan (have three wiz with bad screen) and please replace the mini usb by a micro usb!!

please replace the mini usb by a micro usb!!
This request has me confused. Why do you want micro USB so badly?

1. So, this applies for Vita and some smartphones too, eh?


2. I hate micro. :(
 
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micro are crap, they are so much easier to break... and it's not like mini will make the device 3times bigger... guess the reliability is fine for the average smartphone designed for a 1year lifetime...
 
I wonder why mini was superseded by micro in the first place? Like elwing said...it's not like mini will make the device 3 times bigger or anything like that. There's definitely nothing disadvantageous or wrong with mini.
 
I recently bought the game gadget just to see what's it was all about what a pile of crap feels like your holding a brick and the screen had a dead pixel in and get this when I inserted the micro USB cable to connect to computer it fell off first try so I totally agree micro USB = bad idea.
 
Usually it's a cost or size issue that makes companies adopt new hardware or the good old greasing of the palm hey if you buy 1 millon cogs i will throw in half a million for free.
 
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I wouldn't say ripping off the idea, think the info of each were released around the same time. The video in the OP was published after this news article, the actual leak of the s5100 info being published a couple days before the article was published.


http://dingoo-scene....10-android.html


at a very minimum they released the info during the same time frame, it seems like these guys poop these out overnight, but they don't work THAT fast lol.


anyway... no shoulder buttons on the JXD = fail
 
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The Start and select are on front at bottom of right side of console how does that cause twisting on the hand? for most part start+select has always been for accessing sub menus. As for micro usb hard to source and not as cheap as mini usb and mini usb is still somewhat the standard for devices.
If you can press Select and Start at the same time with the right thumb then no problem, but if you need two fingers like say your right index finger(or right thumb) on Start and your right middle finger(or right index finger) on Select, then that would require your right elbow to raise up(a little) and your wrist to pivot(a little). It's evident the Dingoo was the template for the Zero, and I applaud your effort, but I hoped some of it's traits didn't carry over: mini instead of μUSB/HDMI as found on any modern day smartphone, reset hole(paperclip included?), redundant and dated A/V out, etc.
 
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I applaud the idea, as it has entertained my thought as well for some time. However, I'm more of a fan of do it right the first time rather than get a product with the promise of improvement. I know that talking with these chinese manufacturers is a pain but there's probably a reason why the pandora is as expensive as it is. If I take this product at face value, it doesn't seem too different than a dingoo other than the faster cpu and a gpu. However, there's no promises on the software side so for the moment the faster cpu doesn't mean much. I mean, dingoo's already run older gen consoles decently and newer ones would probably need modifications on the software side to make use of the extra horse power (like the GPU) to make a big enough difference.


Still, I'm anxiously waiting to see if this turns out to be a great product. For the moment, though, this gave me an idea to burn some time. By now, most of you have probably heard of portable consoles (mods made by people of old consoles). If you haven't, a quick check at ben heck's forum or a youtube search of portable n64 will fill you up (keep in mind that as in everything involving modding there are some great ones and quite a bunch of duds). Anyhow, I thought about the possibility of using a cheap chinese 7" tablet, like the ones from Ainol that have an Allwinner A10 SOC. The reason for that is that they can be booted up from the micro-sd slot, have the sources for both the linux kernel available and Android ICS making them easily hack-able. With Android's recent support for USB gamepads and the tablets compatibility with USB-OTG, I think a custom made mod of these tablets to turn them into retro-gaming handhelds is pretty feasible and by the looks of it, cheap (but time-consuming). I'm pretty sure a custom version of Linux with GMenu2x can be mustered up in not a long amount of time making it a great device with (hopefully) multi-boot capabilities (dunno how hard it is to make it easily multi-bootable but firmware hacking is easy enough). Even better (though, this one is out of my reach as a programmer as I'm not really versed in kernel programming, but it's never late to try) would be the possibility of adapting Ubuntu's current work on making certain tablets have both linux and android running at the same time (duh, they both are linux) to allow for the possibility of both android apps and regular linux apps to execute having the best of both worlds.


Sure it's quirky, but I don't have loads of money to develop my own hardware (and these tablets can be had for around 100 usd and have 7" 800x480 regular screens or 1024x600 IPS ones for a few bucks more, with capacitive touch or resistive for a bit less, hdmi out, shoddy wifi which I wouldn't use anyway but is better than nothing and reasonably big batteries) and I'm kinda tired of having to wait for someone to come up with a good enough handheld (the pandora is pretty decent and, next to the caanoo, is about as good as it gets, but it tries to do too many things at once making it expensive and look clunky). That would probably resolve my woes of not having a good enough controller and/or the features I want. This wouldn't probably have pandora's performance in the more complex emulators given that AFAIK none of these chinese SOCs support NEON but I believe that thanks to the frequency the difference shouldn't be too high.


BTW, if you don't think that good quality cases can be made at home, do some research. Some portable-console guys have pretty good and cheap techniques to make alright cases (nothing fancy or really sturdy, but unique in their own way). And the hardware inside these tablets isn't that complex either, usually one L-shaped PCB covering about 30% of the surface and the rest is the battery and screen, I already did my research on that.
 
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