To Wiz Or Not To Wiz?

[Bronze]

Hi everyone, I used to be a regular around here about 5 years ago, when the GP32 was at the top of its game (check out my account creation date!). Due to work and moving country, I bowed out of the community but now I'm BACK! If you any of you from back them remember me, please say hi!

Anyway, I'm looking to buy a new handheld and as I've been away so long, I'm very confused by all the models going around. There is a Pandora, a GP2X, a Wiz... what does all this mean? It appears that the Wiz is the most "current" model, so is it safe to assume this is the one I want? Or should I be waiting for something even newer?

I remember back in the day, the GP32 had different clock speeds and you always wanted to get the fastest one, is that still the case?

I'm mainly looking to run emulators, so I want something with a bit of a kick to be able to run them at near 100% speed. Any advice is very much appreciated!

Glad to be back.

 

[forces]

so for reference: I assume you know GamePark Holdings (GPH).
GP2X Wiz: A console from GPH realsed in 2009, few bugs (like "teraing", i can´t actually explain it), 533MHz processor and 3D chip (notu used at most of the cases), OLED display 320x240, touchscreen, price is about 140 USD, it runs Linux.

DINGOO: A chinese console, that is a lot cheaper than wiz (about 80 USD on Dealextreme.com), with 400MHz, TFT LED display(i think) 320x240, no touchscreen at all. It runs a wired firmware, but you can install linux on it.

PANDORA: A console made by GP2X distributors, that will sure be the best console in the world - 600MHz processor (It can run Quake3), 800x480 LCD touchscreen display, two ANALOG nubs, one Sega-like D-pad, full qwerty keyboard, price about 300 USD (Or 330, i don´t actually know.). But... It hasn´t been yet distribued, and it should be relased in december 2008, if there wouldn´t been few nasty things to happend... It will be probably relased in few months from now, in a batch of 4000 pieces, but almos all of them have been pre-ordered for now. Oh, and i have almost forgot, it will have WI-FI, but so far, they have got a very small speed with it for now. It runs Armstrong Linux(don´t know how to write Armstrong...)

Sorry for my bad English...

 

[xteraco]

Go for the WiZ! Here are the perks.

-533mhz ARM9 CPU that can be OC'd up to 866mhz and even 900mhz in some cases.
-Cpu with FPU
-Dedicated 3d Acceleration
-Bright OLED Screen that has infinite viewing angle, 100,000:1 contrast (perfect black), and 1ms response time (no ghosting).
-64mb of ram

With those specs you can do pretty much anything. The Dingoo is 50 to 80 dollars cheaper but its less than half as powerful as the WiZ, but it has some interesting stuff going on for it. The Pandora doesn't exist (in the sense that there is no "buy it now" button) and probably never will imho.

 

[fr0zen]

You also have to remember about Pandora - the original one. She was a Greek goddess who was endowed with seductiveness and extremely attractive. She was given a jar (Pandora's box) and when she opened it she released all kinds of horrors on mankind (plagues, diseases, etc). She closes it very fast but only manages to trap...Hope...

I don't know exactly what this means for the console Pandora, but...

 

[crow_riot]

i only have a wiz and i like it.

the emulators i'm mainly using are running very well: pocketsnes for snes, gpsp for gba, picodrive for megadrive. personally didn't have a problem with the games i've tried on each of the emulators - chrono trigger, zelda, super mario, super punch out, sonic 1+2 come to my mind.

i can recommend the wiz - if you're happy with those emulators. i didn't try all the other emulators.

 

[senquack]

Go for the WiZ! Here are the perks.

-533mhz ARM9 CPU that can be OC'd up to 866mhz and even 900mhz in some cases.
-Cpu with FPU

I dunno about yours, but mine only overclocks to 800mhz. Also, the Wiz has no FPU, where did you hear that? There is a rumor that the 3D hardware supports floating point transformations but so little is known about it that it might not even really be used by the OpenGLES driver.

EDIT: just read the datasheet and it does do all 3D internally in floating point so yes in a sense it has some hardware floating point but the CPU itself does not

That said, it is a nice machine

 

[Bronze]

The Pandora looks like a little *too* much for me. It might be something I get as well down the line.
I'm pretty certain I'm going to get a Wiz then.

I'm going to look through the forums for more information. Please everyone feel free to keep chiming in opinions, cos I will be checking this thread!

 

[klikklak]

Yeah, go for the Wiz. MAME is pretty on the screen and very compatible with older arcade stuff, a lot of the gp2x homebrew is available also on the Wiz, so you won't miss that much from not having had that. Touchscreen is definitely a plus for it, works great in simple games like animatch and also in Scummvm, Atari ST. Downsides are that the development doesn't progress at a frantic pace, it does happen (I'm looking forward to Final Burn Alpha frontend update that was rumored), but it's not 'releases per day', more like 'releases per week'. As for the controls, you were obviously spoiled by the GP32, but the Wiz is a close second in my books (haven't tried a dingoo), nothing like GP2x which was a disappointment in that regard.

It's a neat little device that does a lot of stuff, hardly perfect, but it is actually available.

 

[Nova]

Can I suggest, if I may, you read my review if you haven't yet?

The Wiz is an amazing, unique little device. I play it daily. I'm actually going to cancel my Pandora order, cos the Wiz just fulfils all my gaming needs.

 

[Reo]

Now here's some downsides for each device!

Dingoo:
- Since it's related to cheap Chinese PMPs, it shares some qualities of some. (but not all) For example, the box is labelled "Game King" (and some boxes are different. not a big deal I guess), the manual is unhelpful Engrish, and the system firmware it comes with is unpolished.
- The only good emulators for the original firmware that come with the system are NES, GBA, Neo-Geo, and CPS1&2. (note that other good emulators are also available for download made by hobbyist coders, such as GB/GBC and Colecovision)
- The shoulder buttons aren't very comfortable. They're about 3-4cm long and they're not at the edge of the top of the device.
- The screen is an LCD, and can ghost. It doesn't ghost as much as some other LCDs, but you can tell it does during some emulators like Picodrive. If you've used an OLED device before, this becomes even more apparent.
- You can install a Linux kernel to run apps without the limitations of the native firmware. However, this has been abandoned by Booboo, who made it possible in the first place. While it's very usable, it also has some problems like file corruption, slow access and write speeds (to combat the corruption), and lack of some functions that the native firmware has. And yet, it has the best software seen on the system.
- MIPS processor... in a world where most handhelds use ARM. You can say the same about the PSP.

Wiz:
- Screen tearing. Basically, half of the screen is updating at a different pace from the other side, causing a visual disturbance. Fixing this is up to the developer of any software that is affected by it, and it can take some valuable processing speed to fix.
- The firmware is a bit crappy. It's visually better than the Dingoo's, but it's a bit awkward in some places. For now, you can't replace or bypass it permanently.
- The buttons on the right side of the system are d-paddish. It's as if you sliced a d-pad so that each direction was its own button. It takes some getting used to, and really doesn't control like a d-pad. It's a bad design choice really.
- Each game/app requires a configuration file for the OS to recognize that it's there and include it as a menu choice in the games menu. You have to make this yourself if the developer of the game/app you want to play doesn't include one. There's software to automate it, but it's still an annoyance.
- Not every game in the GP2X library is available on the Wiz. Many have the possibility of being ported over, but lack of interest, knowledge, and/or people prevents that.
- The touch screen can be a bit jumpy with the screen protector on.
- It has a 3D accelerator which isn't really used much by software even though it has potential.
- I'm not 100% sure on this, but because the screen is OLED, it can burn in and will eventually stop displaying the color blue. Look this up on the forums just in case I'm wrong.

Pandora:
- Price
- Availability
(it's not really out yet, can't say right now)

Please correct me on any of my points if I am wrong.

 

[Bronze]

klikklak - I didn't realise the GP2X's controls were disappointing. That definitely make me feel better about getting a Wiz over that...

Nova - I have just read your review. Was a very good read, thanks for that!

Reo - Thanks very much for this info. I think you've helped me rule out the Dingoo completely. I wasn't too sure about that system.

 

[sam fisher]

I think the screen tearing was greatly reduced with the latest firmware update. I don't ever notice it anymore but maybe I am just not that observant. I did used to notice it in Boomshine2x which annoyed me somewhat. I do agree that the touchscreen works much much better without a screen protector on it.

 

[Reo]

Reo - Thanks very much for this info. I think you've helped me rule out the Dingoo completely. I wasn't too sure about that system.

I feel like I betrayed my Dingoo now. : (

 

[Bronze]

I'm more of a "keep it in it's case" guy than a "use a screencover" guy anyway.

You can always convince me to get a Dingoo still, Reo

Would everyone say that the Wiz is better at emulation than a hacked PSP?

 

[Darth_Moose]

I took the plunge and bought a Wiz last night!
It won't be shipping till next week, but I will let you know what I think!

 

[varan77]

Buy a WIZ...I own , hacked PSP, DS lite and WIZ..yeah, sure , hacked PSP is number one in PSX games..but when comes to SNES , NES ,SCUMMM , AMIGA ,MAME.. there is no comeptiton...WIZ is a winner...that litle screen and great controls...feel so "retro" and more natural for thousands of games ..literary thousands. :gp2x

 

[Bronze]

I look forward to your opinion, Darth_Moose!

Cheers for the input, varan77. I can continue playing PS1 games on my PS3 and PSP.

 

[cwaf]

The Wiz is my first non-Nintendo handheld (apart from the Nokia N-Gage). It's an absolute joy to use. The OLED is outstanding, emulators and homebrew are enjoyable and I appreciate the freedom that comes with it. I like the D-Pad too, I prefer it to say, the DS Lite's.

 

[Bronze]

I'm glad you said that, I hated the DS-Lite d-pad!

 

[yoshi41dragon]

I bought the Wiz and Dingoo when they came out and both are great little machines. In the mean time, I have 2 of each, just in case they will break somehow :blink: I run many different emulators on both.

Wiz

The Wiz is fast enough for most emulators, the OLED is great, but battery life is somehow limited (4-5 hours).

It has some very good emulators like PicoDrive, AlexKidd, PocketSNES, Temper, GnGeo, MAME, FBA, Capex and GBA/GBC/NES emulators as well. ScummVM works great since it has a touchscreen.

Dingoo

The Dingoo is not very fast, but the screen is a bit bigger, great battery life (8-10 hours) and it boots up very fast.

The native emulators are surprisingly good for Neo Geo, Capcom and GBA/NES games. With Dingux you get good support for SMD, SNES games and Arcade ROMs (MAME, FBA). ScummVM work as well, but without touchscreen.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, the Wiz is the better machine. But for it's price, the Dingoo is a very nice machine with much better battery life.

I would buy both, especially since the Dingoo is really cheap.

PS: I use a 32GB SDHC card for the Wiz and a 16GB MicroSD card (with MiniSD adapter) for the Dingoo. I had smaller cards in the first place, but with this size, you get everything on one card.