GameGadget handheld

[MrTAToad]

At least it's available, unlike the ND

[Youkaisan]

With such price. I think I'll take a second-handed Xperia PLAY or and use half price to buy an Android Game Console.....

[erico]

Even a dev version is still a bit expensive.
I think should they do good sales to begin with, price should drop.

[Ruidesco]

This just looks like a slightly more powerful Dingoo A320, which things like the Yinlips YDPG16 (Android-based console) is heaps better with a not much higher price tag.

[doimus]

Oh, I've become so disilusioned with all these homebrew handhelds. There's always some stupid little thing that ruins the experience. Screen tearing on Wiz, cut off pixels on canoo, sound lag on Yinlips, the list goes on and on.
The less "mainstream" the device is, more stupid things show up.
I guess some widespread android phone plus wireless gamepad is stil the best option for retro gaming.

[Gary]

Hmm, just noticed you are waiting for me to do a review. Well here I go lol

First the offer was £55 plus vat at 20% (£11), hence the £66 price.

I will post here the comments I have emailed Blaze. My main concern is over how the development software works. Basically, you have to put the device into sandbox mode (boot with an sd card in with the sandbox firmware) then telnet into the device using linux (the whole dev system needs Linux to run) then manually run the program. You cannot just add the game to the sd card and run it without a computer. So useless for testing on the bus

Here is my mail to them, I will let you know the reply

Mark,

I have been reading the comments on Facebook while I have been waiting for
my Game Gadget to arrive and felt that a few people were being over harsh
but refrained from commenting as I didn't have the device. I picked the
console up from the post office tonight and I would like to share my first
impression views. I am also a prospective developer so will include that
view in my comments

Box - Probably one of the best boxes I have seen on a handheld console. On
the shelf this would stand out. One thing that I will admit to though is I
slid the outer sleeve off and then spent a minute trying to push the box out
of what I thought was an inner sleeve But I would say a definite 10 out
of 10 for the box

Console - First impressions is it is light, maybe too light giving the
impression of a cheap build. The battery cover does not fit right on my
console. The plastic looks like a test moulding rather than a finished
product. Maybe a bit of shine on it would help, it also seems very thin
which is backed up by the power lights shining through the side of the case.
The SD slot looks ugly. I would have gone for a micro SD or an SD card slot
that can be covered up. The buttons are acceptable, shoulder buttons seem a
little loose though. The USB port seems very tight. My screen is not fitted
totally straight with a couple of pixels hidden under the case on the left.
I don't like the way when the console is off and you insert the usb lead it
turns it on, surely having the screen on all the time when it is charging
will reduce the life of the backlight and take longer to charge fully? The
lack of volume buttons is a big minus, maybe when in the main menu you could
have a setting that allows you to use the shoulder buttons as a volume
control? I have the GP2X console which I consider is a similar console to
yours and the build seems a lot better than the Game Gadget. For the look
and feel of the console I would only give it a 4 out of 10

Activation -  All went well with activation but I have ended up with all the
games being listed twice and every time I connect the console I am
downloading an update which is the same as the one I received the last time
I plugged it in. Any tips on how to solve these problems would be
appreciated

Store - The lack of store is disappointing but will pass no further
judgement until you have it up and running, but the lack of store and no
projected date is a disappointment and I can see why the negative comments
on FaceBook regarding this.

The Megadrive emulator - As this is the only software that can be run it
should be 100% to showcase the console, unfortunately it isnt. It is slow
and seems unoptimised for the device. When the volume is muted on the device
the emulator seems to override that and still play sounds. It does not bode
well for the future emulators.

Finally from a developers point of view your dev system is poor. Only
available on Linux is a bad point, if I do graphics and sound the best
utilities are on windows or mac not linux. If you are going to persist on
sticking to Linux only for compiling then at least provide a complete
virtual box virtual machine with the dev system preinstalled so users of
other  OS can run it with minimal hassle. Also the sandbox system is not
acceptable. This means every time I want to run a game I have to be
connected to a PC to run it. What if I want to test a game I have written
while on the bus or the train? You have totally removed the portability of
the system. I am hoping this will be resolved in future updates so you can
fully install your own games but I fear it wont because then there would be
nothing stopping anyone writing their own emulator and therefore bypass the
purchases from the store. I hope I am wrong though.

I hope you will pick the good and bad points out of this email, the Game
Gadget has the potential to be a great product but you need to iron out all
the issues

Gary

[Ian Price]

The price of the GG has been slashed due to "phenomenal demand and support". Yeah right! Successful consoles always cut their prices just weeks after launching.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/content/98674-Blaze-slashes-GameGadget-price-promises-refunds-for-existing-owners

[erico]

I guess most likely they started their campaing on a higher price to take on the first users willing to get it.
I had a hunch they would drop their prices as soon as sales drop from a certain point.

Altough I agree with Gary´s point of view, I sense it may be a little harsh (I may be wrong). Not on the company but on the product itself.
Every small open handheld has problems, every single one of them, I take that as a feature hehe.
If the drawback is no compromising, then I just go around.

For example, I got a caanoo last year, I´m quite happy with it!

Case is solid and heavy and it is made of good quality, got quite impressed about that to be thruthful.
People complain about ~4 pixels lost on the bevel of the case on the top.
I don´t care, you should actually have a safe area on your game for all important content and text, and this safe area is usually higher the 4 pixels. GPH´s support for the caanoo on their ´app store´ is greatly ridiculous and it seems no one wants to change that.
The app store would be quite a hit and that is my hope on gamegadget.

There are many few quibbles all possible to go around.

One last thing about quality on the caanoo, it is great, but if you hold an xbox controlled on your hands, you will clearly see that caanoo´s control could be a lot better then it is.

If their appstore goes nice, I might consider getting a dev device maybe.
Let´s hope they pull this of


EDIT: price is now 100 dollars, similar to the caanoo, I take gamegadget guys can cut this further to 50 dollars and still profit.

[Gary]

Apparently they are refunding the difference to all the early adopters as well, how this will work with the people who bought with the dev discount I don't know.

I had no reply to my email to them but they are busy trying to get everything done for the 1st May deadline they have given themselves to get everything working. If they miss that after going silent on the forums and websites after promising so much I think people will give up on it. So far its looking like a portable Megadrive with 30 average games (the last update removed the function of being able to play any SMD file on the sd card, so you are stuck with what they give you now)

[erico]

Apparently they are refunding the difference to all the early adopters as well, how this will work with the people who bought with the dev discount I don't know.

Might wanna get another email going, it is bad if they don´t reply to the original but if they are really busy on the may deadline, then I guess IMHO waiting a bit should be ok.

... So far its looking like a portable Megadrive with 30 average games (the last update removed the function of being able to play any SMD file on the sd card, so you are stuck with what they give you now)

Pretty not-open hand held that way, but people will find a way to ´open´ it.

So far I heard dingux things can work without recompiling, like here two examples:
http://forum.gamegadget.net/showthread.php/106-Proof-of-concept-SNES-(Super-Mario-World)
http://forum.gamegadget.net/showthread.php/103-OpenDingux

...which brings me thoughts that maybe a GLBasic game compiled for such could work out of the box too?
Could you give a try on such Gary?

I´m sorry to ask, but I sense we could have our stuff going there easy and if their store picks up, could be another niche for us.
I REALLY would like to see such a product succeed.

[Ian Price]

Apparently the GameGadget is nothing but a Dinguu/Dingoo in a new case, with new a menu scheme (some of it still in Chinese!). Anything that worked on a Dinguu/Dingoo also works on the GameGadget.

[MrTAToad]

So not all the text has been converted yet then ?  Sounds like they've got a bit of work to do!

[Ian Price]

So not all the text has been converted yet then ?

Considering that Blaze are hailing it as a machine "Made in Britain" it really shouldn't need the text converting really.
Someone's been telling porkies.

[erico]

hehe, everything eletronic comes from korea or china (even my amiga 4000 did), so maybe made in the UK means designed in the UK? or assembled in the UK? sold by UK?

edit: most complains I hear about is that it is a re-branded expensive dingoo. But one good thing is that should it pick up, there is already software for it, and both communities could merge.

[Gary]

I have just been reading that opendingux runs on the GG with no modification so I looked about and found it is simple to do and works a treat.

This has basically just removed the need for Blaze to open their emulator store as you can get everything you need for opendingux. The console is truely open.

If anyone has a file for the dingoo written with GLB I am more than happy to try it out