The best (and cheapest) portable emulation machine you've never heard of

[Lord Thag]

I recently discovered a strange, REALLY under the radar chinese handheld called the Dingoo A320. Here's the Wiki article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingoo

Why should you care? Well, how does a handheld with a gloriously bright, clear screen that gets upwards of 12 hours battery charge, comes built in with emulators for the NES, GBA, Genesis (which is spotty), SNES, Neo Geo(!) and (drum roll please) both Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 arcade games out of the box. It's got a built in 4 gigs of flash memory, an SD card slot that supports 16 gigs, plays most movie formats, doubles as an mp3 player, and has the build quality of a Nintendo DS (in fact, many of the buttons and pads *are* DS). Pretty neat, no? It's about the size of a GBA micro too. It has several (free) games included, including a couple of 3d games that look better (for real) than most DS 3d games, including a kick ass silent hill type game (also free).

If all of that doesn't interest you, then this will:

It retails for $70.

That's right peeps, you get all that for the price of a 360 game. I've fallen in love with mine. It's a wonderful piece of hardware, and it's so cheap anyone should be able to get one. There are currently emulators being developed (by the fan community) for the Gameboy, Wonderswan, Tg-16/PCE (happy dance!), Mame, SMS, Game Gear, and a few others. It's an amazing system that's rapidly developing a support base. I cannot gush enough about this little gem of a system. Nothing beats running around town with a sexy little black handheld on which I have several hundren NES games, and most of the library of Neo Geo and Capcom games. Dungeon's and Dragons Tower of Doom makes for one AWESOME handheld experience. So does Metal Slug and KoF.

Now, the down side. Currently, the Genesis emulator is very poor, and the SNES is somewhat picky on certain games. Both of these are being fixed/replaced by the community. The Neo Geo emulation is quite good, but it requires the ROMs to be in .MVS format (not a zipped collection of BIN files). This works fine, and there is a free converter, but the converter needs the newer romsets, so it may take a couple different downloads (or you could just ask me  O:) :-").

So, if you are even remotely interested in portable classic gaming, this Dingoo thing is the greatest thing since the Turbo express. Get it at Deal Extreme:

http://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.609

[CosMind]

holy junks...
i'm getting one.
(it's not only a portable, it's also a home console - comes with av cables that seem to be a synch for .)

do you know if there's a feature/hardware difference between the black and white model?  the site you linked has them listed for marginally different prices, and the boxes in the images are different.  i can't seem to find any differences in the long features lists and overviews, though.

[blueraven]

Wow. I'll give a review as soon as I get mine. I wonder if the OS is open source...

[geise]

I wouldn't bother with the Dingoo.  Yeah it's half the price of a Wiz or GP2X, but trust me the emulators on there are quick ports.  There's no optimization for them at all.  They could definitely get better over time, but I really don't see that system getting much development.  Also the support from the company it's self is also lack luster.  I have a GP2X.  It's very awesome and has a lot of polished emulators.  It's my portable pc-engine on the go with ACD CD and SCD support.  Just as good as using Magic Engine or Ootake.  If you want a Dingoo for NES or maybe GBA I would say go for a Dingoo.  You will have to use frameskip though.  Also for other development on opensource handhelds check out http://www.gp32x.com .  They also just started a Dingoo section.

[Lord Thag]

Topic Summary
Posted on: Today at 05:57:18 PMPosted by: geise 
Insert Quote
I wouldn't bother with the Dingoo.  Yeah it's half the price of a Wiz or GP2X, but trust me the emulators on there are quick ports.  There's no optimization for them at all.  They could definitely get better over time, but I really don't see that system getting much development.  Also the support from the company it's self is also lack luster.  I have a GP2X.  It's very awesome and has a lot of polished emulators.  It's my portable pc-engine on the go with ACD CD and SCD support.  Just as good as using Magic Engine or Ootake.  If you want a Dingoo for NES or maybe GBA I would say go for a Dingoo.  You will have to use frameskip though.  Also for other development on opensource handhelds check out http://www.gp32x.com .  They also just started a Dingoo section.
 

I'll have to disagree with you there. So far, I like the Dingoo better than the GPX line. It's got TV out (which I forgot to mention - it works wonderfully well, and even has settings for widescreen tvs), and vastly better battery life.

The genesis and snes emulators are iffy, but the Neo, CPS1/2, NES, GBA ones work great. No frameskipping needed. Street Fighter 2, Dungeons and Dragons, KoF, Metal Slug X etc all work perfectly.

And there is quite a bit of development going on. In two months, there have been several new emulators started, and people are working on better ports of the poor geny and average snes emulators. There are also several homebrew games released. The Master System emulator works, as does the fan ported Gameboy Color one.

Plus the thing is damned sexy, and its starting to develop a head of steam as far as support goes. The battery life is what really sets it apart. the thing keeps a charge for days.

[Tatsujin]

but we heard of it before

[Arkhan]

I dunno if i want to carry something called a dingoo around in my pocket.

I mean I already got one attached to me and all.


 :-"

though this thing is pretty neat!....

I prefer my PSP though

[Turbo D]

While I have yet to try these other contraptions, I prefer my psp slim! You just cannot beat the sexiness of the psp!

[geise]

Topic Summary
Posted on: Today at 05:57:18 PMPosted by: geise 
Insert Quote
I wouldn't bother with the Dingoo.  Yeah it's half the price of a Wiz or GP2X, but trust me the emulators on there are quick ports.  There's no optimization for them at all.  They could definitely get better over time, but I really don't see that system getting much development.  Also the support from the company it's self is also lack luster.  I have a GP2X.  It's very awesome and has a lot of polished emulators.  It's my portable pc-engine on the go with ACD CD and SCD support.  Just as good as using Magic Engine or Ootake.  If you want a Dingoo for NES or maybe GBA I would say go for a Dingoo.  You will have to use frameskip though.  Also for other development on opensource handhelds check out http://www.gp32x.com .  They also just started a Dingoo section.
 

I'll have to disagree with you there. So far, I like the Dingoo better than the GPX line. It's got TV out (which I forgot to mention - it works wonderfully well, and even has settings for widescreen tvs), and vastly better battery life.

The genesis and snes emulators are iffy, but the Neo, CPS1/2, NES, GBA ones work great. No frameskipping needed. Street Fighter 2, Dungeons and Dragons, KoF, Metal Slug X etc all work perfectly.

And there is quite a bit of development going on. In two months, there have been several new emulators started, and people are working on better ports of the poor geny and average snes emulators. There are also several homebrew games released. The Master System emulator works, as does the fan ported Gameboy Color one.

Plus the thing is damned sexy, and its starting to develop a head of steam as far as support goes. The battery life is what really sets it apart. the thing keeps a charge for days.

Yeah I definitely have to agree with you about the battery life of the GP2X.  I own one and man does it eat batteries.  At least there are good/cheap 3000mah AA batteries out there you can get for it.  As for the dingoo I have yet to try it.  It does seem like the controls are better than the GP2X.  As for right now though, most emulators are a bit more polished than the dingoo.  The Dingoo, just came out though.  I have been eying the Dingoo and the GP2X Wiz.  The Wiz I know for a fact has a bigger community, but the system itself is also 100 bucks more.  One reason being the AMOLED screen and touch screen.  If the Dingoo gets more developers involved it will definitely be something I would consider buying.

[nodtveidt]

It looks rather impressive actually...I might get one eventually, as soon as I have some money to spend (which might happen in 6 months...).

[Lord Thag]

Linux is now confirmed to boot and run on a stock dingoo. There are a couple of youtube videos of it running with games/music playing.

We're close to a major explosion of homebrew/emulation. I'm still loving mine.

[blueraven]

Linux is now confirmed to boot and run on a stock dingoo. There are a couple of youtube videos of it running with games/music playing.

   That was actually my next question, Lord Thag. Thanks for the tip, which is also the tipping point of how quickly I'm going to get one of these consoles!

[Lord Thag]

That was actually my next question, Lord Thag. Thanks for the tip, which is also the tipping point of how quickly I'm going to get one of these consoles!

Yep, they just posted a vid of prboom (Doom) running flawlessly on it. Mame and ScummVM are due out at the end of the month too. The Dingoo scene is about ready to explode. Updates coming daily. It got lucky and came out in the drought left by the pushed back release dates of the GPX Wiz and Pandora, and it's really starting to get a head of steam.

Once Linux is released, the sky is the limit!