It's not an advertising, I have no connection with the project
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gcw/gcw-zero-open-source-gaming-handheld

It's like Dingoo, but even better, because of Doom, Quake and Duke =)
I'm already backed, but this project needs a lot more money.
Please, back this project, you will keep your money in case goal will not be reached.

What's this handheld's niche supposed to be? The Open Pandora or a PSP with custom firmware both make fine old school emulator boxes. They also have everyone's favorite idtech source ports. The Open Pandora can run Linux and the PSP has a strong proprietary library to supplement homebrew.

I love gadgets. Why do I want this particular one?



Edit: Hmmm... USB OTG and Mini HDMI, interesting.

It's like Dingoo advanced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingoo_A320
And it's much cheaper than Pandora, but better in some points.

I'm afraid this will fail, just as all the previous attempts at doing the same thing have done. It will fail because of extremely limited exposure, and even more extremely limited availability. Most people won't know it exists, and of those who do and actually want one, many won't be able to get one.

Thus, the audience will be small, and the available software will not be abundant. After a while, it will die a slow death, with a few die-hard enthusiasts clinging to it like limpets to the bottom of a ship, until the next project of this kind comes along. Then the whole scenario will play itself out again.

The only way for something like this to become an actual success, is to find actual distributors around the world, so that people can buy the device locally. That's still no guarantee, but it raises the chance from "none" to "slim". Another requirement is an official software library. If users have to scour the web for obscure enthusiast websites to find programs that someone thought it would be interesting to write or port to the platform, then the platform will remain closed to all but those enthusiasts themselves.

The problem is of course that in order to fulfill the requirements for success, a massive amount of starting capital is needed. This is only available to huge companies, and those aren't interested in making something like this.

Pretty sure the Pandora has USB OTG and is only lacking the HDMI port.

Pandora is $600+ for the 1GHz version, this is ~$150.

I'm thinking it might be nice to occasionally hook it up to a tv and play with a full size controller.

I think the Pandora has a TV out of some kind. This is undeniably a lot cheaper though.

As cool as that thing looks, I can't help but think that for the money I'd rather get the JXD 7300. Looks like it should be available pretty soon. Its got two ACTUAL analog sticks too. That might be a first, I think?

Brief Youtube peek at the device in action.

Grrr... why do the URL tags keep breaking aster I click Post?? :(

Whoa, I never even heard of this. And it runs Android, perfect. THAT's a device that might succeed! If they'd included actual phone functionality, that thing could have exploded onto the market. As it is, some people who might have bought it otherwise won't, because it means they have to carry around two devices instead of one. In short, this is the phone the market needs, if only it was a phone. But as a handheld, it's pretty damn sweet.

Edit: Okay, so it wouldn't be very practical as a phone. I just saw the video, and that thing is huge! I thought it was much smaller.

OS: Android 4.1
Screen: 7.0-inch (diagonal) LCD, 1024*600 pixel

Nah... I prefer Linux (because of better emulation software) and 4:3 screen (because it's native for old games).

https://docs.google.com/a/corp.badoo.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkPJuV-UtMLRdGNRZlRjTGNUVGhqRTNZT1dkaEN1dVE#gid=0

I finally broke down and decided to fund this. CSXbot, I hate you. ;p

This thing can't even run Supertux!



But it's a lowpower battery operated handheld portable that runs normalish linux on fairly open hardware. And its cheap (which means I can break it). On paper, this thing is a superb tinker toy.

I can't justify buying in 2013 handheld for $150 with 320x240 resolution. Even for emulation. At the very least high resolution would allow to use more screen area for games with resolution < 320x240. And make pixels more squarish. And make possible to run quite a bit of higher resolution old games without down-sampling. And so on. Anyway, I wish these people good luck, they look like real enthusiasts.

Between portables like this and the JXDs for the "low end" and Nvidia Shield for the upper end, I think the Open Pandora is going to be in some trouble. I realize it was never meant as a mass produced machine, but cheaper options with appeal to the same crowd are starting to show up now.