GP2X
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I haver have been frequent gamer. There are little games which I have
been able to play for more than several minutes. One of the exception
is the Doom. I was actually able to finish the demo WAD but never
wanted to continue.
Anyway, I have the Sony PlayStation 2 (I'm saying have not use...). In
late 1980s I also had the Soviet Elektronika "Wolf and Hare" handheld
game.
I always wanted to try a more modern handheld console - something like
the Atari Jaguar or even the PlayStation Portable. Or some of the
Linux-based consoles. I have thought that they should be preferable
because they often are able to emulate older devices.
The one which have seemed them most interesting to me has been the GP32
or the GP2X. They can run on AA batteries so there should be no issues
with batteries.
I have been (well, not very frequently) searching online auction sites
for one of them. And I have found and have got the cheap GP2X F100
recently (it seems that the GP32 is much more rare and thus more
expensive). My GP2X was said to be only used for some university
project and then stored for years. Well, that project was probably a
research on gaming addiction if I can judge from device wear... :-)
Anyway, I have got a fully working device (sans missing dust flap on
the USB port - they probably remove it to ease access to the USB and
the power port). I have inserted a pair of AAs and it started to work.
It is somewhat bigger and heavier than I expected but it is still fine
to use. The default user interface is intuitive enough but it is not
elegant (but show me and elegant console interface!). So the thing is
easy to use. One only has to copy games or applications to directories
on a SD card (no particular order or organisation is needed)and to
insert the card into the device. When it is turned on then it is easy
to browse to the directory and to start the executable.
Of course, games control can be less intuitive - some use the "Start"
button to start but some are not and so on. Some games are stable bus
some are rather unfinished ports. I was surprised that there are little
3D (or pseudo-3D) games, car simulators and such things as the device
has a pair of 200 MHz ARM CPUS (one of them is the main one and the
second can be specially programmed).
The Doom is here for sure. I even have found [1] some car racing games
and strategies. But the most games are 2D ones of several kinds. There
is also a selection of utility programs which include a Linux terminal.
I don't think that controlling the keyboard with a 8-directional pad is
the sanest idea, anyway.
There are also some build-in applications. There is a simple file
manager (good enough to move or delete files and directories), a music
player (should play both MP3 and OGG files and plays them quite well),
a video player (I have not tried it but I don't see any reason to watch
movies on 3", 320x240 screen) or a text reader. The last one is
advertised as an "e-book reader" which was probably correct when it was
new but now it can be misleading. It can only work with plain text
files. But for them it is very nice to use. I already put several book
in plaintext to the device.
There are other thing I'm going to investigate: the device is able to
emulate older computers and gaming consoles. And it can be programmed
in C with use of the SDL library. It also may make sense for me.
Well, battery life should be mentioned. Expect some 2-6 hours of active
use for a pair of batteries. A pair of freshly charged Eneloops is fine
for a few-hour train trip but then be prepared replace them with an
another pair...
After all, I am happy with my new toy. I have no plan to use it often
but there are situations when it became handy. And finally I have been
seeing what that mobile gaming is...
References:
[1] http://openhandhelds.org