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Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
It's never going to be fantastic, but the SF2000 has potential, depending on the amount of support it receives from homebrew developers. And we've already seen at least a little, so that's encouraging.
I'm really entertained that the homebrew community has hooked into this $20 thing (and that it's made a splash at all--it doesn't sound that different from 90% of PowKiddy's low-end output). I feel like the Anbernic RG353PS is the "good" version of that form-factor...it's just five times the price.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Because nobody reads this stuff unless I promote it...


A more full-bodied review of the Data Frog SF 2000. It takes some babying to get this thing to the point where it's comfortable to play (pro tip: change the key mapping with a web tool so you don't have to press R to jump, preserving your sanity), but once you get it to that point, it's actually not bad. It's a twenty dollar handheld that plays Alien vs. Predator and Darkstalkers! Like, pretty well! If you handed this to me when I was twenty four, I would have been so deliriously happy I'd have bounced around the room on my head like Scrooge McDuck in that episode of DuckTales where a sea monster eats his ice cream.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
A more full-bodied review of the Data Frog SF 2000. It takes some babying to get this thing to the point where it's comfortable to play (pro tip: change the key mapping with a web tool so you don't have to press R to jump, preserving your sanity), but once you get it to that point, it's actually not bad. It's a twenty dollar handheld that plays Alien vs. Predator and Darkstalkers! Like, pretty well! If you handed this to me when I was twenty four, I would have been so deliriously happy I'd have bounced around the room on my head like Scrooge McDuck in that episode of DuckTales where a sea monster eats his ice cream.
Okay, now I'm going to ask you to keep an eye on the homebrew scene, because I'm very curious where that gets this. I wonder if they can get it up to snuff with the PowKiddy Q90/V90, which are smaller but run $30-$35 and were my previous winner for "cheapest that's still good for many things."
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Have any suggestions for sites? I've been reading Reddit for this information but news is scarce. GBAtemp doesn't even seem to know of its existence, or care.

I've heard the FC3000 (looks like a mutant Game Boy Micro) is slightly more expensive than the Data Frog but offers slightly better performance/more systems. No analog thumbstick, though.
 
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Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Have any suggestions for sites? I've been reading Reddit for this information but news is scarce. GBAtemp doesn't even seem to know of its existence, or care.

I've heard the FC3000 (looks like a mutant Game Boy Micro) is slightly more expensive than the Data Frog but offers slightly better performance/more systems. No analog thumbstick, though.
Honestly, I suspect that if somebody random puts up new firmware or something, the first place it'll get widely noted is on Youtube. Blog posts trickle in, but everybody's in a rush to make a video when something new hits.
 

muteKi

Ell eye ell why, ee ee ell why
they got saving working for 32X on mister a couple weeks ago so it's now the ideal way to play 32x games on just about any hardware except the rather cumbersome original circuitry.
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
Speaking of the original circuitry, if anyone has issues with their 32X, pop it open and check the ribbon cables. Those pop loose pretty easily, it seems. I had one that didn't work at all and one that was really flaky, but reseating them did the trick.

(And yes, cumbersome is the right word.)
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Help me, an Amazon seller is selling new Surface Duos at clearance prices (relatively speaking, still like $300), and I'm tempted to buy one and a telescoping controller to make into HD OLED DS/3DS emulation machine.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Help me, an Amazon seller is selling new Surface Duos at clearance prices (relatively speaking, still like $300), and I'm tempted to buy one and a telescoping controller to make into HD OLED DS/3DS emulation machine.
...You expect us to talk you out of this? I mean, if it works, I want one too.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Well there were only 5 left, and my wife and kids are leaving the country to visit her parents for a month, so I can use a project...
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Looking at skins for the duo, since it and the controller I picked out don't match colorwise:

https://a.co/d/9nsmbdu SNES themed, but still doesn't match the controller.

https://a.co/d/4sDnxBY NES themed and closer to the controller, but meant for the Duo 2, which has a camera block on the back. I mean I can just place it so the controller hides the camera cutout, maybe...

https://a.co/d/4lQ2eiK Just a plain old black one.

https://a.co/d/0N21YmH Wood grain

Thoughts?
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Beowulf, you got any thoughts about the recent handheld game sales advertised on SlickDeals? They've got the Miyoo Mini Plus and the Anbernic 35xx for reasonable prices ($60 for one, $70 for other). Is it the right time to bite on a deal? Should I hold off for something more powerful? Dreamcast would admittedly be nice, but I can live without it as long as it supports older systems the Data Frog doesn't.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Beowulf, you got any thoughts about the recent handheld game sales advertised on SlickDeals? They've got the Miyoo Mini Plus and the Anbernic 35xx for reasonable prices ($60 for one, $70 for other). Is it the right time to bite on a deal? Should I hold off for something more powerful? Dreamcast would admittedly be nice, but I can live without it as long as it supports older systems the Data Frog doesn't.
Well, those prices are right in line with what you'd already be paying on AliExpress, and I think they're pretty reasonable for what you get. Is Dreamcast the only thing above PS1 you care about? Do things like N64, DS or PSP matter to you? And do you already have a rom collection, or is getting a system that's loaded-up important to you?
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Oh, I got ROMs. I've had ROMs since the 1990s, and I'll likely have ROMs for the foreseeable future, at least until Internet Archive shuts down. Pre-installed ROMs are great and everything, especially when special formatting is necessary to make them work with the handheld, but I would likely just swap out the SD card with a better one anyway. The default SD cards are supposed to be crap, which is why one of the first things I did when I bought the Data Frog is copy all the data to a Samsung.

Nintendo 64 is not a high priority, nor is the Nintendo DS. PSP would be nice to have, but I do have a buttload of PSPs and Vitae, so it's not totally necessary. In fact, I would probably be happy with the PSP for emulation if it was a bit peppier. It has a HUGE variety of emulators, with new ones coming out as recently as 2019 (!!!). You'd think the Vita would be just as good for emulation, but it... kind of isn't? It's more powerful hardware, but also DIFFERENT hardware, so while it can emulate the PSP emulations of other game systems, emulators designed specifically for the Vita tend to suck ass. Maybe while you guys are porting Android games like Shadowgun to this thing, maybe you could port a few Android emulators, because they'd likely be way better than what the Vita currently has. You get toaster-riffic performance out of pFBA... it's just shameful. And MAME/FBA is pretty lousy across the board on the PSP... it's not powerful enough to handle an emulator that supports thousands of disparate machines, and it really shows in the performance.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Oh, I got ROMs. I've had ROMs since the 1990s, and I'll likely have ROMs for the foreseeable future, at least until Internet Archive shuts down. Pre-installed ROMs are great and everything, especially when special formatting is necessary to make them work with the handheld, but I would likely just swap out the SD card with a better one anyway. The default SD cards are supposed to be crap, which is why one of the first things I did when I bought the Data Frog is copy all the data to a Samsung.
Honestly, you're savvy enough that I'm thinking you might be better off saving up for a Retroid Pocket. That takes a lot more work to set up (it's running Android and doesn't come with any preinstalled games), but it's got the juice to do pretty much anything you'll want and it has the entire Android development community effectively behind it. Both the RG35XX and the Miyoo Mini+ are great out of the box, but neither is particularly easy to upgrade (you're pretty much beholden to OnionOS/GarlicOS, and they're both just on top of RetroArch). Of the two, the Miyoo Mini+ is the better device from a technical standpoint, but it's also less comfortable to adult hands.
 
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