Gamepark Holdings' GP2X
 

http://www.gp2x.com or http://www.gp2x.co.uk

Anyone else here see, own, or use one of these amazing little gadgets? I got mine a couple months ago and have had a blast loading emulators and all my favorite games from my early years onto it.

I'm still addicted like a crack whore to my Nintendo DS, but this thing is a serious contender for sapping away untold hours of my life.

Coolest part is it's open source (though there is some controversy over Gamepark Holdings' refusal or inability to release the source code for the embedded version of Mplayer) and comes with its own SDK so you can homebrew your own games for it.

It uses standard SD/MMC cards and also has a bit of space on its internal ROM for software, audio, or whatever other files you load onto it.

I do find it somewhat troubling that it runs on AA batteries instead of a Li-Ion, as AAs traditionally, well, suck by comparison. Maybe the rechargeables are better. At least they sell an AC adapter for the unit.

I love using it for video too. It supports XviD, DivX, and a number of other video formats right out of the box. I popped an episode of Paranoia Agent, and later Xenosaga the Animation on an SD card and it found and played them with no tweaking or configuration whatsoever.

Screen's gorgeous too.

Anyone have any GP2X-periences (hrr hrrhrhrhr hrr hrr...okay, shoot me) to share?

I've heard of this thing for a couple years now. What is this thing like? Is it menu driven like the PSP? What emulators did you load on to them and how fast do they run?

I wish I could give one a test drive sometime. Is the screen nice? How bout the buttons and controls?

I just checked, and the GP2X seems to be around the price of a PSP. Not sure if it's worth it, though.

I had heard of a ton of problems with the GP2X, so I never picked one up.

Stuff like crap battery life, problems with the screens, crappy D-pad, faulty construction, etc...

Might have only been in the first run, but I'm not sure if it's fixed yet.

Hmm, that's no good. I'm not sure what the first run was like, but it may well have been less than ideal.

Come to think of it, they did change the directional stick nub to a concave one from a convex "traditional" style.

The construction seems fine on mine, though, and the screen is, IMHO, the best of all the current handhelds'.

I dislike that it uses AA batteries, as the battery life is crap. Like I said, I want to pick up some rechargeables, though, and see if they last longer.

As for emulators, Genesis emulation is just about perfect, and SNES is coming along nicely. Castlevania Bloodlines runs great, as does Sonic 2, Phantasy Star 4, and Flashback.

I own a DS and a GP2X, and have played friends' PSPs in the past, and I think you get more for your money with the GP2X than the PSP. Mostly because of Sony's hardline stance toward homebrew and emulation. The PSP is under constant firmware-update attack against modders, whereas the GP2X is a hairsbreadth away from being marketed explicitly as a piracy/ROM tool.

The DS isn't marketed so much as a multipurpose media device, so it's difficult to compare it. The DS does, however, eat the GP2X for lunch in the way of battery life. Especially the DS Lite.

The one problem I have heard of that seems serious is in the realm of firmware updates. Apparently incorrectly-applied firmware updates have rendered GP2X units inoperable, and irrevocably so. I'm wondering if there isn't a tool to first generate a binary dump of the current firmware revision so one can re-apply it to the device, but if it's required to be booted first in order to make any firmware changes, then that's going to cause problems.

Also, I picked mine up from Play-Asia for $170, so it's actually just about halfway between the DS and the PSP.

If you're into handheld games for handheld games' sake, you'd probably be better off going with a DS, but if you're into hacking/modding/homebrew/programming/etc, the GP2X is a sweet little device.