What To Buy? What To Buy?

[Shmargin]

OK. So I've been sniffing around the open source handheld community for a fairly long while now, like 4 years, and still haven't actually purchased anything yet. I've got my fancy phone that can run some emulators, but I need buttons!

So I was looking at Pandora, and talked myself out of it. Too expensive. Looks really cool. Lots of cool features, but I really just want portable emulation with buttons.

So now I'm looking at the Caanoo, and I think it might fight the bill for what I'm looking for. Looks like it emulates everything from Atari 2600 to n64, right? And it seems to have a good ammount of apps and people supporting it. And its in my around $100 price range.

But now I see this GCW zero and it looks like its a lot faster, but I'm worried if I wait and buy that, I wouldn't end up with as good of a community and availability of software that I see for the Caanoo. Whats the general consensus of the people here regarding the Caanoo and this other new toy? Or is there something faster and cooler I should be looking at?

Also can I verify the Caanoo RAM? On the wiki and the forum threads, RAM is listed at 128MB, but on GameSuave the place it looks like I have to buy it from in the US, they list the RAM as 64MB, anyone know whos right?

 

[hardyx]

Caanoo has 128 Mb of RAM, doubling Wiz memory. You must to buy something that has (today) the software you want, not a very powerful or new hardware which lacks in software. GPH consoles or Pandora (if you can afford) is good, and has a good scene.

 

[LTStone]

Caanoo has 128 Mb of RAM, doubling Wiz memory. You must to buy something that has (today) the software you want, not a very powerful or new hardware which lacks in software. GPH consoles or Pandora (if you can afford) is good, and has a good scene.

I totally agree with Hardyx, get something for what it DOES or WILL do, not what it COULD do. Some people get too caught up in specs sometimes..
Oh by the way Hardyx, love your reader and pdfviewer ports, I use them all the time on my Wiz. Are you still working on them or any new projects? I would like to see a remember last page or bookmark feature added to to both and maybe some more speed and touch screen scrolling for the PDFviewer , but they are still great as is.

 

[Orion4874]

For what's it's worth, the Caanoo doesn't emulate N64. Even if it had an emulator for it it would be a slideshow. If that's important to you then the Zero should have a chance at decent N64 emulation but someone has to port one and probably optimize it though, so there's no guarantees. Well, that or the Pandora but that's $400 for the 600mhz and $700 for the 1ghz models.

The Caanoo does emulate most 8 and 16 bit consoles very well and PSX is also very good thanks to notaz.

 

[Shmargin]

Thanks everyone for the tips and advice. I watched some video of Caanoo in motion, and it seems great. N64 emu would be cool, but its not essential. With over a decade of emulated games working on the system, I dont think I'll miss one system.

I was thinking about it, when the Caanoo launched, the reason I didnt want to get it, was because it didnt have any of the software available when it launched, just like the current new ones coming out wont have anything. I think I might go ahead and buy the Caanoo now, while theres alot of fully functional stuff already available for it.

Anyone know the best site for buying a Caanoo from? I'm in US, so that might help on shipping if I can buy from a US vendor, but if I can get it from anywhere else thats a good vendor for a better overall price (after shipping) I could put up with waiting longer for a better deal.

 

[choy.andy]

I got mine a few weeks ago from gamesuave.com. Shipping was from Los Angeles area and was REALLY fast.

 

[rohezal]

Remember that PSX emulation is not perfect. Some games works realy great, some does not. There is thread were you can read. I recommend Final Fantasy 7, Alundra and Blood Omen for playing with virtually no slowdowns. A little slow downs has GTA2 which is a very great game (and which is perfectly playable on the Caanoo).