Should I Buy One? Some Questions

[Rm88]

Hi, I'm currently the newest user around here. See, I recently discovered the Caanoo (thanks to Play Asia) and I'm deciding if I should buy one or not. I'd use it mostly for emulation and music, but I'd also like to know if there are good original games for it. For example, this fighter looks pretty awesome - is it already available for Caanoo?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa90iIJKIbM

So basically:

1- Is it good for retro emulation?.
2- Is it a good mp3 player? I currently own an old iPod Touch, it has really good audio so I'd hope this wouldn't be a big downgrade.
3- Does it have enough good original games? That's also important, but not as much as 1 and 2 I guess. And that gamed linked above looks fantastic.

In case you don't think this is what I'm looking for, could you recommend another similar console?

Thanks in advance!

 

[lnx64]

So far my findings (though a more professional video review will follow soon):

1. Yes, and I honestly feel the LCD is better suited than the Pandora, cause the pixel resolution matches that of most old systems.
2. It actually doesn't sound that bad, but when you hook it up to an amplifier, there's some digital noise that an iPod touch 1g wouldn't have. On headphones it's perfectly find, and is rather bright, in contrast to the Wiz being not so bright and kinda muffled.
3. No.

I actually demo a couple retro games on the system in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coPdBNCnWSA

All games that were under ressed for the LCD (like gameboy advance, SMS and SNES), can all be upscaled and it looks decent, I just prefer 1:1 pixel mapping.

 

[coldfish]

The homebrew library is growing but taking a while.

Check the archive:

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/caanoo.cgi

or here:

http://lostsite.altervista.org/wiz/?tag=homebrew

or here:

http://www.caanoo-news.com/

 

[Darkknight512]

It's a great system for emulation, almost everything up to PS1 (though only a few games full speed right now for PS1). I own the Wiz, it depends on what you want, the Wiz is smaller, and has a DPAD, smaller screen but it's and OLED... All other hardware is pretty much the same, software is not directly compatible though. The Cannoo software has been catching up now. A few native games that are good on the Wiz (most are ports),would be OpenTyrian, Abuse, OpenTTD, and CaveStory.

Music is not bad, I don't think any of the audio players have EQ or other DSP settings, I come from an Ipod Nano running Rockbox so I've been accustomed to all the little tweaks it has.

Maybe for you getting a Wiz would be more worth it, its about 20-30% cheaper now. Look on ThinkGeek, though I think the problem with SNES emulation on the consoles coming from ThinkGeek have still been a weird problem.

 

[lnx64]

Audio wise though, the Wiz isn't that good at music playing. On a bench test, it was terrible at stereo separation and tone.

 

[LTStone]

Audio wise though, the Wiz isn't that good at music playing. On a bench test, it was terrible at stereo separation and tone.

Using Ginge on the Wiz I tried the gp2x music player and it has eq settings but they don't seem to make any difference.

 

[lnx64]

Well the normal player just pushes a flat EQ (something i like), but with a flat EQ, you hear the characteristics of the amp inside the Wiz, and it isn't pretty. It just seems that it's too top filtered, and even filtered on the low end a little too.. The Caanoo is bright, but I yet to test it's low end capabilities..

 

[Rm88]

Okay, I may be getting one along with my 3DS :lol: Last 3 questions: does the music player show album art? are playlists possible? and finally, is the fighting game I linked easily found?

 

[lnx64]

Yes, it does actually show album art, but only a per file basis, so each file must contain the art, not just one in a folder. No playlists. The game I'm not sure, I don't play fighters.

 

[tryone]

Hi,
the game you mentioned is made by GPH and presented at the E3 and also preinstalled on all test models for Developers and so. So far I know the game isn't published yet, and if it will you'll have to buy and download it at fungp.com.
It's sad, that GPH did the thing with drm-infected games at their "homepage".

 

[lnx64]

Here's a much more professional review from me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4_Dq0sLhzg