New Competition (has Anyone Seen These?)

[christo930]

http://thegadgetsite.blogspot.com/2007/10/...layer-with.html
http://www.mp4nation.com/products/index.php?PID=J301

Mp3/mp4/movie players with built in emulators. And does anyone know if our beloved GP2X has the same type of screen (Low Temperature Polysilicon Thin Film Transistor)? Obviously our machine can do more and I've heard from 1 review that the emulation isn't as good as they make it out to be and that the GBA is extremely choppy. Interesting enough, they said the snes emulation was perfectly smooth with sound, but that the Genesis became choppy during periods of lots of sounds? Anyone have any experience? Think they are worth getting?

Chris

 

[naples39]

Very interesting. That thing is extremely thin, the screen looks pretty nice, and 600mhz processor sounds impressive. Dpad, looks like 4 face buttons with shoulder buttons, but the screen is pretty small.

Hard to tell much from a video like that, but NeoGeo and Genesis/MD emulation looks pretty solid. Obviously we need more info about FPS and compatibility before a final verdict can be reached about emulation quality.

Another concern is that this is probably closed source, which is a major drag. What makes the GP2X special is the dev community constantly improving projects, and with no such support the device would likely have a much shorter lifespan.

 

[kfuse]

heh thats different...completely same but don't have a touchpad though...and from the looks of it definately looks like closed source...hmmm but at least they got the Dpad right.

Still you gotta love the chinese for their ability to make clones of literally anything that hits the market... and be almost dirt cheap in comparison to its predecessor.

 

[peelie]

a 16m colour screen wow; builtin usb! and those codecs - RM / RMVB / AVI / DAT / FLV / MPG man i am tempted!

edit/

curses no tvout ah well not so tempted now

 

[deluded]

Well uLinux is available for Backfin processors, and there's ports of mplayer and mame available, so I guess they've just taken these and thrown them together.

Don't think the blackfin CPU has as many features as the gp2x chip - only one core, and no mention of 2d acceleration (but does have video stuff in it).

Info about the CPU etc at http://blackfin.uclinux.org/gf/

 

[Deed]

It seems it does not have any L and R shoulder buttons. Too bad It could have been a really good little chinese device, for once. Also, even if it is closed source, I have the feeling it would not be too difficult to hack such a device and create a custom firmware over a linux distro

Processor seems quite powerful also, does anyone knows if it would be able to handle PSX emulation (although without L+R buttons it wouldn't make so much sense) ?

 

[gavinb2k]

It seems it does not have any L and R shoulder buttons. Too bad It could have been a really good little chinese device, for once. Also, even if it is closed source, I have the feeling it would not be too difficult to hack such a device and create a custom firmware over a linux distro

Processor seems quite powerful also, does anyone knows if it would be able to handle PSX emulation (although without L+R buttons it wouldn't make so much sense) ?

:-( looks really good bt like u say no shoulder button, specially with Snes emulation etc, seems pointless...

 

[Cruel]

Wow! Look at the processor`s powers!

 

[Firefox]

That's really nice! B)

Shame there doesn't seem to be any technical documentation on it. I'd really like to code something for that!

Well, I suppose you could code a GBA game and run it on the 301's emulator, but that'd be a bit naff...

 

[lubidog]

But as a player, very nice...

Maybe Craig can bring his machine out on budget!

 

[Squidge]

Interesting, if only to rip it apart and see what you can get it to do that its not supposed to

 

[thumpgun]

would be nice for just playing gba games

 

[Franxis]

Seems GREAT !!!

 

[gavie]

would be nice for just playing gba games

Well that's what it promises, but according to this review:

QUOTE

NES / SNES - Seem to run very smoothly, with or without sound. Great fun!!

NEO GEO (not pocket)- These run well, but I've got too few ROMS to experiment fully with.

SEGA MEGA DRIVE - Very smooth with no sound, and a little choppy with all that hectic music playing!!

GAMEBOY / COLOR - Some success - still experimenting

GBA - forget it!! Very choppy so far, but I will try again.



By the way, there are currently 2 topics discussing this device, the other one is on the other consoles forum.

And..are there any shoulder buttons? (for SNES/GBA)

 

[Vilmos]

Wow, I think I might get one of these just to fool around with. I mean they are only $126.50USD at mp4nation!

Even if I can't get into it the kids will have fun with it.

 

[skeezix]

would be nice for just playing gba games

... or get a gba?

jeff

 

[thumpgun]

thats about £60 ...thats a cheap price ...might tide me over for a while

 

[quadomatic]

I wonder if they're right about the screen being that great. It does look pretty nice.

But, does anyone even know if it's possible to develop for it.

 

[Cervante]

:huh: after doing some research people have problems loading neo geo roms, it cannot play zipped rom files it has to play .neo extension rom. Some games are .neo and if they are .neo the possibilty is high for it being in chinese.

 

[DaveC]

Looks ok but with some issues. The "d-pad" looks like separate buttons. No shoulder buttons. There is only one speaker, kind of lousy especially since it touts music playing. Then those emus looked OK but there was noticeable frameskip. SMD and Neo Geo run smoother and in stereo on the GP2X. The unit looks TOO thin and small, not very comfortable for any extended periods. It is not that much cheaper than a GP2X either.