GP32 owners, how do you like them?

[GameGuru]

Give me the good and bad and what you can do with it. I am on the fence and need a nudge haha. My current PDA is a Casio BE-300 with eXpod but I am looking to upgrade and emulation on it would rock. How would you rate the non-backlit to the backlit etc?

[Flack]

First of all, I would not replace a Palm with a GP32. The GP32 is a gaming machine, with more in common to a GBA than a Palm. I know there is one program where you can punch in addresses into your GP32 with the joystick, but ... ugh, who's gonna do that?

That being said, here's my quick rundown off the top of my head.

Good:

Under $200 for non-FLU.
Uses Smart Media cards which are cheap.
Near perfect emulation: Atari ST, Commodore 64, NES, Atari 5200, Coleco, Gameboy Color.
Good emulation: Atari 2600, SNES, Genesis.
Lots and lots of free ports and other software.
Runs off of 2 AA's, can buy an ac adapter at Radio Shack.
Good screen (even non-flu is dang good), buttons and stick feel good.
Plays MP3s out of the box.

Bad:

Plays movies if you buy a movie player and encode them down to 15 fps.
Processor may not be fast enough to handle full speed SNES/Genesis emulation with sound.
Will never play GBA games at full speed.
People have had lots of hardware problems with even new GP32s. Lots of people have had to repair them/send them back.

The biggest bad is that GamePark is based in Korea, has had several failed launches, doesn't seem to have good support, quality control, or much money left. There isn't a lot of official software out there, and what is there is mostly in Korean. The official software that was released was cracked within minutes. I can't imagine they're making a hell of a lot of profit on the GP32 so far (with the small runs they've had), so if they're not making any money on the hardware OR the software, that's a bad sign.

If you are a vintage type gamer who would love to play some old Coleco, Atari, or NES games on the go, then the GP32 is worth the cash. If you're buying it for SNES/Genesis emulation, I'd hold out a bit (although a new Genesis emulator is slated to be released on Christmas, and rumor has it it's quite good).

I've been thinking about selling mine. I live in an area where there is no public transportation, so if I'm in a car, I'm usually driving it. I have a really nice laptop, so whatever the GP32 does, my laptop does it better. I would think for people in school or people who ride the bus/train, the GP32 would be an excellent investment.

Oh, and on the flu/non-flu thing ... the FLU of course is better, but quality control is so crappy on those things. First of all, you'll most likely get at least a little trapezoid effect, second of all the small gap in the screen lets dust in so your screen will get dirty on the inside which is a royal pain in the ass to clean. I LOVE my non-flu and have had no problems what-so-ever in seeing it or playing it in basically any lighting condition. I had a GBA (original one) and hated the screen, the GP32 is supposedly better than even a GBA SP screen from what I've read (I don't have one, can't really comment on that).

[Li Wang]

The backlit version actually has a slightly darker picture than the regular unit because of the extra screen that reflects the light. This isn't an issue with any of the emulators worth using because they'll have a gamma option. Unfortunately the FLU system also seems to have problems with dust building up inside. The FLU just illuminates all the little dust particles really well. I went through two FLUs before I gave up and just went with a regular unit.

Great emulators: FMSX, Little John (NES emu), SMS32, GPEngine (PC Engine). Frodo (C64) and Castaway (Atari ST) are also supposed to be very good.

Good: ScummVM - The sound is still very glitchy and there's major slowdown every few minutes from the autosave. There's a port in the works of the latest version but it'll probably be quite awhile before we see anything as the guy who was working on it has a busted GP32. Still, portable Monkey Island.

The most dissapointing thing about the system would have to be projects that are just kind of ditched when they're 95% complete. Look at all the useless Gameboy emulators that would be great had the authors had just implemented accurate speed throttling and auto frameskip. The system is 2 years old and something as simple as a truly good monochrome GB emu still dosen't exist.

Overall I've always been pleased with the system. Decent SNES and Genesis may happen in the future, if OpenSNES9X and the two Genesis projects keep getting better. Don't let that be a deciding factor, though.

[GameGuru]

Interesting, thanks for the feedback. From the way it sounds the non-FLU might be better as long as I have good lighting in the room. Ok next question.

Which do you feel is a better unit ... the GP32 or Zodiac?

[BoOchan]

I'd say the Zodiac, that thing looks so cool and really looks like a PDA the other way around. The GP32 has limited support anywhere and refuses really to start out of Korea, so the Zodiac would be a better choice. They're about simalar price.

[Flack]

GP32 is $169 new (~$100 on eBay). Zodiacs are $299/$399, depending on how much RAM you want.

Zodiac is definitely the way to do if you're wanting PDA style functions (since it runs Palm OS, it's got a BIG head start on available software). If you're wanting emulators, GP32 is (currently) winning that race.

GP32 is so underground that people are making emus for is and nobody really cares. The Tapwave has enough publicity that many of the emus coming out for it will be for sale -- that's not necessarily a bad thing, I'm always ready to shell out $10-$20 for a great program.

[jonjandran]

Just a thought.
The GamePark GP32 has a Risc 133 processor and the Zodiac has a Risc 200.
So the Zodiac will most likely do SNES and Genesis and GBA emulation perfect.
I have a GP32 and I don't think it will ever do that. :(