Please Help A Newbie Virgin!

[Ruthie]

I hope the people here are nice enough to help me - if it's necessary to point fingers and guffaw, please do it when I'm not looking!

I want to buy a device to entertain and organise me away from my computer.
The main features I'm interested in are:-

Watching films/tv shown that I have recorded or downloaded.
Reading ebooks.
Playing entertaining games (don't have to be new - I loved my Spectrum and Megadrive)
Doing simple wordprocessing/note taking.

After discussing my needs with some tech-savvy friends, the GP2X was one of the devices that came up as meeting my requirements.

However - I have not owned a PDA before, nor have I used Linux. I'm a newbie in both repects!

I've spent the last couple of days lurking these forums, and reading LOTS of useful information.

But - here are some questions I've not been able to answer for myself from what has already been written.

1) Is the GP2X really suitable for someone who is more interested in just using its features rather than developing? I think I would become frustrated, rather than satisfied, by having to fiddle for hours to get something to work.
I don't mind following clear instructions, (some of the guides here are excellent), but I'm unlikely to be able to work much out for myself.

2) What is the ebook viewer like? I see it included in the features, but don't see much discussion. Is the text resizable? Does it scroll/pageturn nicely?

3) Games - I seehow to download a host of interesting emulators, but don't see anywhere to download ganes to use on them. What am I missing?

Thank you for reading this!

Ruthie.

 

[PokeParadox]

1) Is the GP2X really suitable for someone who is more interested in just using its features rather than developing? I think I would become frustrated, rather than satisfied, by having to fiddle for hours to get something to work.
I don't mind following clear instructions, (some of the guides here are excellent), but I'm unlikely to be able to work much out for myself.

2) What is the ebook viewer like? I see it included in the features, but don't see much discussion. Is the text resizable? Does it scroll/pageturn nicely?

3) Games - I seehow to download a host of interesting emulators, but don't see anywhere to download ganes to use on them. What am I missing?

Thank you for reading this!

Ruthie.

​

1) Most things will just work if you read and follow the instruction in the readme files.

2) The eBook viewer is a just a plain text viewer. It can let you set a truetype font and it also lets you save bookmarks.

3) It's just not allowed to post ROM links on the board mainly. ROMs downloads are illegal, unless you own the actual games. Even then some games companies will try and tell you that is illegal.
In short: You are on your own when it comes to finding where to download the ROMs(games) for the emulators.

 

[rokdcasbah]

that was pretty scary pokeparadox

let me just point out that finding roms is a simple matter. but no one's going to just give you a link obviously...it may be legal to download roms of games you own, but distributing is another matter entirely.

anyway they're not hard to find, and as far as "illegalness" goes i'd say it's sort of like breaking the speed limit.

 

[yoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

for games think google

 

[TelcoLou]

Of note: I found that movies look a lot nicer on the GP2X than on the PSP (I'm talking about user-converted movies, not UMDs).

The GP2X screen is sharper and seems to not have any of those nasty black-blurs that offend my eyes so badly ...

 

[yaustar]

Watching films/tv shown that I have recorded or downloaded - DivX and Xvid are supported so far.
Reading ebooks - only TXT works at the moment. Not 100% sure about RTFs or PDFs
Playing entertaining games (don't have to be new - I loved my Spectrum and Megadrive) - Shouldn't be a problem
Doing simple wordprocessing/note taking. - I cant remember any apps that do this yet.

 

[Claym99]

Damn misleading titles...

anyway for what your talking about I would check out the Tapwave Zodiac. Olympic systems is having a deal on them right now for $125 plus $10 shipping. It really is a beautiful thing. Go to Tapland.com to find out more.

 

[virusx]

If you're not scared of reading "readme.txt" files and the kind of person who likes to tweak his computer (for exemple); like mounting an image, changing a firmware of a piece of hardware, then I think there's no problem.
I'm only a blingdows user, I don't know anything about Linux, with an oldschool gaming background and everything is fine for me with the Gp2x.
Some things need that you pay special attention to it (flashing firmware, let an emulator run as you want...)

-Watching films/tv is okay as long as you keep the right format (Divx, Xvid)
-Reading ebooks. I don't use this a lot. But it's just a simple text reader (there's a bunch of homebrew for that too)
-Playing entertaining games (don't have to be new - I loved my Spectrum and Megadrive). This gaming device is great for emulation. Megadrive emulation is nearly perfect.
-Doing simple wordprocessing/note taking. Not possible, except with a virtual keyboard, for the moment (but I wouldn't do that).

For the games... You'll find them, don't worry !
(You're about to begin a nice RomQuest II : The last bin; not available on this forum :lol: )
And there's great homebrews on Gp2x (not one, not two...)

Sorry for my "strange" english

 

[Shikaku]

Doing simple wordprocessing/note taking. - I cant remember any apps that do this yet.

​

VI works in sterm... use select left/right to move left right...

 

[nickspoon]

Did anyone forget homebrew ROMs?

 

[PokeParadox]

Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.31 Server at www.pdroms.de Port 80

lol

 

[Ruthie]

Thank you everyone for your friendly responses!

Games questions quickly answered (and, for the record, I'm mostly interested in playing games which I DO own, but for which the platform or gamepads have been worn out!)

It's reassuring to hear that not everyone here is a software development enthusiast. There are so many posts here along the lines of 'How do I fix this?' - but I suppose that anyone for which everything works well doesn't bother to post 'I did this and it worked very well!'

Thanks for the suggestion for another device - hadn't heard of that one - investigating!

 

[bagmouse7]

If you don't want to "get your hands" dirty don't get a GP2x.
I think is as simple as that.
I love the GP2X and it has SO many great features, but if you want easy and "works without fooling around with it" then go get a PSP or a Nintendo DS.
As another poster wrote, "If you are going to get frustrated reading readme's in order to get the programs to work then you will NOT be happy with the GP2X."

 

[gothakane]

GP2X Lacks one thing to meet all your criteria - a keyboard. Even the onscreen ones have to be controlled by the sucky joystick.

As well as a GP2x I own a PDA running Mobile Windows 5 - it can do everything you require most likely better than the GP2X, which despite having a great community around it, still lacks raw power and maturity. As another poster said, "if you don't want to get your hands dirty", don't get a GP2X Go Palm or PocketPC which have onscreen or built-in keyboards and a massive software library!

 

[aapje89]

Yes, if you really want to type text's larger than a few lines I would NOT get a gp2x.

But except that it can do all those things you listed fine .

 

[taras]

Ruthie - I would highly recommend a higher-level Palm, perhaps a Palm Tungsten E - they have plenty of emulators, and are excellent for keeping yourself organised (surprisingly easy to take notes on too). I had a Palm Zire 31, which is quite low spec, and that was great.

*However, the control is not particularly suited to games - the GP2X-style control is (obviously) great for games.

 

[Fishbong]

As another poster said, "if you don't want to get your hands dirty", don't get a GP2X Go Palm or PocketPC which have onscreen or built-in keyboards and a massive software library!

​

But a PDA hasn´t the apropriate controls to play all the classic games (except for the Zodiac, of course)
PDA games are mostly touchscreen puzzlers.

You don´t have to know anything about Linux, or programming or scripting to enjoy your gp2x, if you want to have some text processing, buy an old PDA for like 50 - 70 $ (like a Palm Zire) and use it alongside your gp2x.

OR, like Claim99 posted, you might get a zodiac. Those things are still very nice gadgets and offer all you need along with super simple handling.

 

[NightShadow]

If you are looking for a PDA, then the GP2x might not be your gadget.

Even tough I recon that most of what you want to do, can be done with the GP2x I think you will be better off with something in the likes of a Tapwave Zodiac.

Take a look at it...

If your main concern are games, then I'd go for the GP2x

 

[Ruthie]

If you are looking for a PDA, then the GP2x might not be your gadget.

To be honest, the problem is that I don't know WHAT I'm looking for.

I know what I want to do, but most of the things I want to do are secondary functions of a device.

Devices that start as PDA's, handheld Games consoles, and Phones all seem to have converged in terms of secondary functions..
And it seems to be the secondary functions that interest me.

I'm not in business, so address lists/e-mail conectivity/report writing etc don't worry me.
I'm not interested in the cutting edge of game technology, just having something that entertains ME.
I'm not a 'phone chatter', so fancy things that can be done with a phone don't appeal.

At the moment, the three devices that I am considering are:-

The GP2X.
Advantages - Megadrive games, DivX movies, TV connectivity, SD card compatability, AA batteries, friendly, informative forum community.
Disadvantages - Unknown Linux OS, device in continuous development, needing to know what you're doing (or who to ask!!) to make it work.

Palm Lifedrive.
Advantages - 'Finished device', intended for easy use.
Software available, but games are basic.
Plays movies on a large screen, but need encoding - but nice, easy-use software available.
Good for PDA tasks - full keyboard available.
Disadvantages - how long will Palm OS survive? would I be buying into "Betamax"? Battery pack???
PDA design - it does many things that I don't want to do. (WiFi etc)

PSP.
Advantages - finished device, large user base. Movies (when converted), EMU's and ROM's available (<-look at the jargon I've learned in a few days!!!)
Disadvantages. Cost. Buying into the big corporate product. Being designed for cutting-edge games, which is not my interest.

I've researched the Tapwave Zodiac, and agree with those who have reccommended it that it looks great - except that it seems to be out of production. Sellers are selling old stock.

And I am really, really drawn to the GP2X beacuse of the DivX/TV playback capability. This would give me a use when I'm just at home.

The only drawback is lack of typing/input - small ammounts of text seem manageable, more would have to be done with a notepad (and I mean PAPER!!!)

Still deciding...

 

[cbox]

The Sharp Zaurus can do all you mention, and you can get an older one for about the same price as a GP2X, they have keyboards and run Linux and there's lots of online resources for getting games and emulators and various PDA applications for free.