Travel-Friendly Retro Suggestions???

[marlowe221]

Hi all.

Got a new job that has me doing a lot of traveling. I would love to pursue my favorite hobby but space is an issue. Any travel-friendly/handheld retro gaming suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm not married to any particular system.... What's out there?

[treismac]

This (http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/handheld-consoles/dingoo-digital-a320-624388/review) might be on interest to you.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I recently took a vacation and brought my Gameboy Advance SP. It's durable and small enough to fit in any suitcase (I sound like a salesman). Its library is full of Super Nintendo quality games that are quick and easy to play. It'll make you look forward to traveling.

A DS that's backward compatible would also work.

[c0ldb33r]

second on the GBA SP - go for the backlit version, not the front lit. You won't need anything else!

[SonicBoom]

I Suggest a DS With emulators. Small and thousands of games on it.

[substantial_snake]

http://segaretro.org/images/archive/5/54/20100819183753%21Multimega.jpg

Very Travel Friendly. :)

[jb143]

If you're going to be playing where it's bright out then I'd suggest a backlit GBA SP too. I tried playing a DS in the car once when it was sunny out and could barely see the screen. The SP screen looked great in that lighting however.

[Damaramu]

I'd recommend my personal favorite:

Modded PSP-slim, 8gb micro SD card or higher - load it up with emulators and games and you're good to go.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

http://segaretro.org/images/archive/5/54/20100819183753%21Multimega.jpg

Very Travel Friendly. :)

And it looks very stylish as you walk down the sidewalk listening to your favorite CDs. It just needs a shoulder strap and some giant headphones.

[substantial_snake]

And it looks very stylish as you walk down the sidewalk listening to your favorite CDs. It just needs a shoulder strap and some giant headphones.

The OP said "Any travel-friendly/handheld retro gaming suggestions". I take mine with me all the time if I know I am going to be gone for a week or more and enjoy retro gaming goodness without emulation. *shrug*

[StealthLurker]

I'd say go with portable emulation, preferably one that has a TV-out as well. Hundreds of games in your pocket for multiple consoles/portables/arcade/computers. So many options these days too.

modded PSP
DS w/ cart
GBA w/ cart
Dingoo
Caanoo
Wiz
GP2X
Pandora (hard to get though)
countless MP4 players


.

[marlowe221]

I'd say go with portable emulation, preferably one that has a TV-out as well. Hundreds of games in your pocket for multiple consoles/portables/arcade/computers. So many options these days too.

modded PSP
DS w/ cart
GBA w/ cart
Dingoo
Caanoo
Wiz
GP2X
Pandora (hard to get though)
countless MP4 players


.

What would be your pick of this list?

Otherwise, lots of great suggestions. Thanks!

I have DS and a PSP actually. Not sure I'm confident enough to mod the PSP but a flash cart for the DS might be an option.... You just plug it in the cart slot and play?

[StealthLurker]

What would be your pick of this list?

Otherwise, lots of great suggestions. Thanks!

I have DS and a PSP actually. Not sure I'm confident enough to mod the PSP but a flash cart for the DS might be an option.... You just plug it in the cart slot and play?


From my experience I would say look into a Caanoo or GP2X F100/F200. The key thing in deciding are:

1. How active is the development community for a device
2. What type of games/platforms are you most interested in playing
3. Quality of the controls

imho I prefer the options I listed above.

I've got all the devices listed below minus the Pandora. Some of my quick thoughts...

modded PSP: It's nice and convenient, plus it can play PSP games and pretty good with PS1 game images. However I don't like the screen quality and the aspect ratio. Sure you can have black bars on the sides, but I really dislike that. Also I'm not loving the controls. Lastly I'm really into vertical oriented arcade games and it's not too comfortable for me playing those on a PSP. I also have 2 tv-out cables for this. One is a japanese 21pin RGB cable and the other is component.

DS w/ cart: Haven't tried this yet personally but have heard some good things. Though I'm not digging the idea of the 2 screens for emulation.

GBA w/ cart: Dabbled with this a bit, but it doesn't emulate as much as others due to hardware limitations.

Dingoo: It's good for the price, but too underpowered imho vs. some of the newer devices in the asian electronics portable emulation devices market. It's a good entry level device. Also has tv-out I believe but haven't tried it yet.

Caanoo: Very promising, however I haven't had a chance to play with it too much yet. I believe this has tv-out too.

Wiz: This is the immediate predecessor of the Caanoo. Heard about some problems with this device. Haven't played with it very much though. Don't recall if it had tv-out.

GP2X F100 or F200: I've spent the most time on both of these. I was very pleased with their performance. Good amount of emulated devices. Successfully emulated Cave shmups waaaay before it was possible on the PSP. Pretty good tv-out as well. I really like the screen quality and aspect ratio on these (though the Caanoo is better). Some people don't like the dpad at all. Yes it could be better for some types of games. However on mine I added an accessory d-pad that makes it much more comfortable and easy to use. Might be hard to find now though and these d-pad accessories were sold in Japan I believe.

Pandora: Don't own this... yet.

Random MP4 players: Cool to tinker with, but generally very underpowered and the controls are terrible. These tended to be the early devices targeted towards a portable emulation device, though they still make plenty of modern ones. They usually end up looking like PSP clones these days. Mainly used for watching videos, listening to music and crude e-books.

I'd also like to add Smartphones like a rooted Android phone or a jailbroken iPhone/Touch. Add an iControlPad and these can be nice devices. A plus here is that hey it's your phone, does your internet stuff and hey can play games too. Usually these tend to have pretty good hardware specs as well. Though tv-out is hit or miss imho.


.

[Amon_Re]

What would be your pick of this list?

Otherwise, lots of great suggestions. Thanks!

I have DS and a PSP actually. Not sure I'm confident enough to mod the PSP but a flash cart for the DS might be an option.... You just plug it in the cart slot and play?

I have some of those:

Dingoo:
- Pro: Cheap, easy to find lots of emulators (SNES, NES, GB & GBA, Genesis, Master System, CPS2, Neo Geo & MAME (romset v38 iirc)
- Con: System isn't that comfortable to hold in your hands and some units have a problem with the buttons making some combo's hard.

Caanoo:
- Pro: Whole range of emulators with excellent performance, open source, very comfortable to play with, nice & bright screen
- Con: The bezel covers up a few pixels of the screen so you loose some lines, analog thumbpad takes some getting used to and some emulators lack deadzones for the analog thumbpad making some games hard to play.

Wiz:
- Pro: OLED screen and has about the same emulators as the Caanoo. It's also open source
- Con: More comfortable then the Dingoo but less comfortable then the Caanoo, some people have had the OLED screen die on them, small screen

GP2X:
- Pro: Open Source and a lot of emulators
- Con: Older system and lacking in CPU power. Thumbstick is rather fragile, doesn't use a LiIon battery but AA's

As for the PSP, that shouldn't be a problem really, you don't really need to downgrade anymore these days and even firmware 6.60 has been broken.

[VertigoProcess]

Id say gameboy micro... fits in the smallest of pockets without even noticing its there and it has a back lite screen

[Amon_Re]

Caanoo: Very promising, however I haven't had a chance to play with it too much yet. I believe this has tv-out too.

Wiz: This is the immediate predecessor of the Caanoo. Heard about some problems with this device. Haven't played with it very much though. Don't recall if it had tv-out.

Both the Caanoo & the Wiz can be hooked up to a TV but not all emulators support this.

About the Caanoo, I forgot to mention this earlier, this little puppy comes also with an USB connector where you can plug in an USB stick for instance or a (supported) wifi dongle (though I really see no use in wifi on this).


Random MP4 players: Cool to tinker with, but generally very underpowered and the controls are terrible. These tended to be the early devices targeted towards a portable emulation device, though they still make plenty of modern ones. They usually end up looking like PSP clones these days. Mainly used for watching videos, listening to music and crude e-books.

Actually, most of these are based around the same core as the Dingoo and are just as capable. The problem is that not all of them support Dingux (linux for Dingoo) and thus only support emulators written specifically for them.


I'd also like to add Smartphones like a rooted Android phone or a jailbroken iPhone/Touch. Add an iControlPad and these can be nice devices. A plus here is that hey it's your phone, does your internet stuff and hey can play games too. Usually these tend to have pretty good hardware specs as well. Though tv-out is hit or miss imho.

Biggest problem with Smartphones is battery life

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

The OP said "Any travel-friendly/handheld retro gaming suggestions". I take mine with me all the time if I know I am going to be gone for a week or more and enjoy retro gaming goodness without emulation. *shrug*

Sorry, I thought it was a joke. :oops:

[MachineGex]

I like the Yobo FC 16 GO with Retrozone's Power Pak for playing SNES games. You get to play almost every single game on the go and the biggest plus is you can hook it up to a TV. Makes it a nice setup cuz you can take it on a plane and then hook it up to the TV at the Hotel.

For NES, the FC Mobile II and Retrozone's Power Pak is basically the same deal for playing NES games. Plus, hooking it up to a TV is the biggest draw for me. Playing some of the older games on a small screen makes the game a harder. The difficulty playing sports games seem much higher especially. Games like RBI baseball, Baseball Stars, Tecmo Bowl are much nicer on a TV. This setup lets you play them on the go and on a TV.

The above setup requires you to carry a small travel bag for all the cords, plugs and extra controllers. Not a big deal, but they arent as portable as a PSP or Dingoo.

If you are not going to want to hook it up to the TV, the PSP is a nice setup. I have a NES emulator and rom set on mine and it works good. Like above, some games seem much more difficult because of the small screen. I can't get too far on games like RC ProAm and Micro Machines on a portable. On a big TV, it feels like a much easier game.

Both are good options in my opinion. I tend to like the first setup better, but it does take up some room. If you have a small briefcase, everything(both systems NES & SNES and extras) fit without problems.

[marlowe221]

Hmmm.... Lots of options and they all seem to have drawbacks/trade offs...

I am mostly interested in playing NES and SNES games. I like Genesis too but I am just now getting into it...

I (sadly) don't have much experience with many other "retro" consoles. The 16-bit era was my wheel house though - I'm 29, and was a bit young for most of the 8-bit era.

So I guess 16-bit is my priority. 8-bit capability would be great though since I need to go back and experience all the good stuff I missed.

Thanks for all the great info.