| Okay I am going to break this review into 3 parts. Part one is Specs, Battery Life, and what file formats I could use. Part 2 is Emulation and Android Game performance. Part 3 How am I getting the most out of it and final conclusions. I plan to have it all complete by 2-21-12. Right now I am spending most of my time right now getting ready to buy a car due to some ex-friends wrecking my other one. My Goal for this year is to buy All the android gaming systems out there then testing them to see which one is the best in overall Value, Performance, and most importantly which one will give you the most bang for your buck. because spending $100+ on anything you need to know was that money well spent. At this time there are 3 main systems
Yinlips YDPG18 (two versions right now three in a few months from now.)
Avg. Price $135 (the future upgraded model $160)
JXD S7100 (two versions one with Captive Screen one with Resistive Screen)
Avg. Price $150 (resistive screen) $175 (captive screen)
JXD S601 (The cheapest of them all though it Resolution is that of a PSP)
Avg. Price $86
I have heard of some other ones but these stores that carry these "other brands" look sketchy at best So until I see them in more respectable stores I declaring these as the only ones around.
Now at this time I am NOT declaring this as the Upgraded model I am going to refer this model I got as a updated model, and I plan on ordering another one and hopefully it'll be the original model.
First I will go and talk about the specs of this model I got:
Phone Model: Crane_E001 (allwinner)
CPU: Allwinner Sun4i (A9 class*)
*=now the CPU code name is for there A10, but this is not a A10 tough due to the fact that a A10 use a ARMv8 instruction set and this is using a ARMv7 instruction set.
RAM: 512 Total System memory 315 MB System RAM and 197 System Storage (for OS files.) I still can not find out if it's DDR2 or DDR3 without opening up the system.
Internal storage: 3GB (2.7GB actual storage)
GPU Mali-400
Screen: 5" Resistive Screen 800x480
It is a resistive screen that can do 2 point zoom but no true multi touch so it is pointless on games, but helpful on web browsing.
OS Android 2.3.4 (Code name: Gingerbread)
The analog stick and D-Pad on this device do not work independently. oh well
Battery: Unknown (at least without opening the system which I will not do until I by another one or if this one goes out.)
Now I need to point out some things about this system:
Market installed without a hitch. I found out when I tried to run z4root that the system was already rooted. Now Market has a issue tough. anytime I go some areas of market (mostly apks that you have to pay for) the market will crash. to bypass this just buy it from your computer then when you connect the Yinlips to wifi it'll install without a hitch. Also due to it being listed as Crane_E001 there are a lot of programs that will not install from market due to them saying (unknown compatibility) even though after finding there apk on the internet and manually installing it. the program worked beautifully or at least had a quirk or two. oh and the games that I stated in the video as not being on the system were just simply not installed and were in the apk folder of the 4GB Micro SD card that that came with the system plus there were a lot more software available as well. Now I waited to write this review until after I get a larger SD card so when I got a 16GB San Disk card.
Now the First Test was on battery life:
now in this test WIFI is always with Equalizer running in background on I'll update this review with WIFI always off and no running background program running later
Battery:
10 hours Music playing with 30 minutes of display on to change albums (MP3 OGG and FLAC files were used in testing)
Gaming with brightness at full 5 hours. (except Plants vs. Zombies, GTA 3, and FPSE there time was 3.5) now with emulation no matter the system exception the FSPE do not put much of a strain on the battery which is good. I can even play angry birds for five hours with no problem for that long. this is the same amount of time compare to my PSP Slim (with Custom Pro B-10 firmware) So not too shabby I must say.
Video:
5 hours 320p
4 hours on 480p (DVD quality)
3~3.5 hours HD 720p quality
2.5 hours 1080p
All depends on what codecs the file was encoded in.
In a nutshell these are still good compare to the "Big Game Companies" and of course you can charge this by USB or Wall Mount. when I finish the entire review I will add the times with out the wifi or background programs running.
File Playback types allowed:
Music:
APE, FLAC**, MP3, OGG, WAV, MP4, WMA
**= Some FLAC files I had actually caused the system to crash and reset itself. So if you use FLAC make sure it's dose not have a single bit of corruption. this happened in every single music player apk I installed and even the one that came preinstalled.
Video: AVI, RM, MP4, WMV, FLV, 3GP, MOV, MKV***
***= MKV will not work with software out of the box. I could only get it to work with MXplayer through Software decoding only and will not work with HD quality MKVs and even some 480p quality depends on codecs that were used in the file.
One other thing about playing HD files I had Audio Sync trouble when using other Media player except for Meridian or the one that came with the system. I actually prefer for this system the Meridian due to the fast forward and rewind control of the D-Pad without causing the onscreen menu to come up (that was always so freaking annoying especially cause you have to wait so long to get the blasted menu to go away and the fact that it has a resistive screen it's really hard to go and skip just 30 sec. without jumping too far or to short. okay enough ranting back to the review.
FLASH:
SWF through browser or install SWF player. FLV 240p to 480p through browser up to 1080p through Media Player that is installed the highest Flash version that I got to work was ver. 10.3 or earlier even though Flash 11 is preinstalled on the system.
Part 2 Emulator performance:
Well one thing I'll note the more programs you have running in the background the more you'll have slowdowns and/or sound glitches. I also want to thank my friends that provided me with there copies of some emulators due to me focusing on getting things of greater necessitates like a new used car for example.
Now with this updated model I received has updated versions of the emulators that are provided on the original, but most of them just ended up getting deleted like Gensoid, NESoid, TigerArcade, and SNESoid. (henceforth there not worth reviewing) I will delete GBCoid when I obtain GBC.EMU. The main reason is it will not save settings nor will not let me change ROM directories this makes starting a game time consuming. Also EMUs like Gensoid and TigerArcade had way too many graphic glitches. One in particular TigerArcade would crash or even cause the system to randomly reset the system. Well with that said this is what I currently am using
*= came preinstalled with system originally
MD.EMU $3.99
Emulates: Sega Master System (Mark III,) Game Gear, Sega Genesis (Mega Drive)
PCE.EMU $3.99
Emulates: PC Engine (Turbo Graphix-16 aka Turbo DUO,) PC Engine CD-ROM, Super Graphix
NES.EMU $3.99
Emulates: Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom,) and Famicom Disk System
Droid2600 $free
Emulates: Atari 2600
MSX.EMU $3.99
Emulates: MSX (up to turbo R,) Colecovision
N64roid* (version 2.6)
Emulates: Nintendo 64
GBAroid*
Emulates: Gameboy Advance
GBCroid* (I will uninstall this ASAP)
Emulates: Gameboy and Gameboy Color
MAME4ALL $free
over 2000 arcade machines from late 70's to late 90's
C64roid $free
Emulates: Commodore 64
UAE4Droid $Free
Emulates: Commodore Amiga
SNES9X EX $free
Emulates: SNES (Super Famicom)
FSPE*
Emulates: Sony PlayStation One
Now the following EMUs work Best with the Analog stick:
Driod2600 (no issues at all)
MAME4ALL (most games will work some though will give you trouble mostly Fighting games)
N64roid (some minor issues)
FSPE (some minor issues)
The others work best with D-Pad
EMULATOR REVIEWS (I'll add more later)
Name: MD.EMU price $3.99 (U.S.)
File Types: GG, SMS, SMD, BIN (will not work with GEN, but just change file extension from GEN to SMD and it'll work fine)
This is the best emu that I could find even though it comes at a price of $3.99, but there are no graphic nor audio glitches so there is not be much to go on it's just simply the best out there. The only thing that it did not get a 10 out of 10 was the lack of GEN file support so I had to spend a good amount of time changing my file types. Now I can not wait until there is Sega CD support that'll be freaken sweet.
Speed: 10 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
File Compatibility: 9 out of 10
Ease of use: 10 out of 10
Overall Rating 9 out of 10
Name: PCE.EMU price $3.99 (U.S.)
The only PC Engine (Turbo Graphix 16) available. It'll also work with SuperGraphix and PCE CD-ROM files as well. The Speed, Sound, and Graphics quality is flawless. Now the Down side is the game compatibility issues. I will play every game as long as you get the proper dump of the ROM. While most work with the original dump some game require a alternative dump for those that are not familler with Alt. Dumps I'll give a example who are new at this:
MEGA_GAME.PCE ------------- Does not work
MEGA_GAME [B0] [!].PCE ----- Freezes at title
MEGA_GAME [A0].PCE ---------Fully Playable
So the original may not work, but one of the Alt Dumped ROMs does so you just keep the one that works and delete the rest. This is why the rating goes down quite a bit due to time your going to spend finding the correct dump version of your favorite game. Now once you have it all set up it'll run great.
Speed: 10 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
File Compatibility: 5 out of 10 (using trial and error to find all the working ROMs was a major hassle.)
Ease of use: 7* out of 10 (*=this is still to getting everything setup once set up it' be 10 of 10)
Overall Rating 6 out of 10
Name: Droid2600 Price Free
Perfect Atari 2600 emulation, and extreamely easy to use just set up ROM directories and key mapping and your all set. The menu screen is also nice as well. Oh it's best to use the analog stick to maneuver the D-Pad can be a tad of a hassle for some games. Oh you will have to google for it do to it not being in market at this time.
Speed: 10 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
File Compatibility: 10 out of 10
Ease of use: 10 out of 10
Overall Rating 10 out of 10
Name: NES.EMU Price $3.99
Perfect emulation, and easy to use just set up ROM directories (be sure for Famicom Disk System use that you have the FDS Bios,) and then set up the key mapping and your all set. I have yet to find any fault at this time.
Speed: 10 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
File Compatibility: 10 out of 10
Ease of use: 10 out of 10
Overall Rating 10 out of 10
N64roid ver. 2.6 (preinstalled and never updated)
Okay this is what came with the system. I tried the others but this one worked the best. Now it's not perfect, but compared to the others this one has the best speed, sound, compatibility, and have the less graphic glitches (very few so far.) Now sound quality is good, but does have glitches and slowdowns. It's still very playable So do not uninstall this one, because it's the best your going to get from a N64 emulator at this time.
Speed: 8 out of 10
Sound: 8 out of 10
Graphics: 9 out of 10
File Compatibility: 8 out of 10
Ease of use: 8 out of 10
Overall Rating 8 out of 10
SNES9x EX.EMU Price FREE
Perfect emulation, and easy to use just set up ROM directories , and then set up the key mapping and your all set. I have yet to find any fault at this time. You will have to go to author's website for this one due to being pulled from market
Speed: 10 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
File Compatibility: 10 out of 10
Ease of use: 10 out of 10
Overall Rating 10 out of 10
MAME4ALL Price FREE
The best of the Android MAMEs that are out there. Three issues 1. Finding proper ROM sets (took me some time to find them) 2. they don't make it easy to set up Alt ROM directories. 3. Sound is glitches from time to time. best to have it in Mono sound rather than stereo for some games (particularly ones that use samples.) once you get all set up it'll run fine.
Speed: 10 out of 10
Sound: 9 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
File Compatibility: 10 out of 10
Ease of use: 7 out of 10 (the setup is the reason for the lowered score)
Overall Rating 8 out of 10
I actually had more reviews of other emulators, but due to a virus attack I lost all but this part. So I will continue to work on the rest I'll post some that were supposed to have been good but really sucked. Since I got a good mini HDMI cable I will make a Video showing all the emulators I am using and some of the others that did not work well (if I did not delete them from my system) off of my 42" TV  .
That is all of part one and two...... my final update will be on 2-24-12 (I am still sick... turns out it's the flu, and not allergies) |
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